Hearing this, Jiang Chao pulled him aside. “Bug, Consultant Lin?” Jiang Chao paused, then asked nervously, “This isn’t Xiang Ye’s and Meijing’s group messing around again, is it?”
Lin Chen shook his head. “It doesn’t look like that. Listening to the expressions in their words, it seems to be a typical type I schizophrenia* symptoms. The symptoms are primarily hallucinations and delusions. If he’s not a patient at Yongchuan’s Second People Hospital, then check the recent medical records of Yongchuan Guangwen Hospital.” After he said this, Lin Chen found that there was no response around him. He turned his head only to realize that Wang Chao wasn’t by his side at this time and that no one would give him an immediate answer. He wanted an answer, but conventional investigation methods still required a lot of time, and he was afraid Jiang Chao’s wife wouldn’t have that much time.
*Schizophrenia is categorized by various types. Type I schizophrenia is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, and formal thought disorder, with a presumed underlying dopaminergic dysfunction.
“Is he mentally ill?” When Jiang Chao heard this, he became even more nervous. “Then wouldn’t my wife be in more danger? Do you want to enter the negotiation right away? But talking to a mentally ill person may not be all that useful!” As Jiang Chao was speaking, he thought of something, took out his Bluetooth headset from his pocket, and handed it over. “The special police should arrive within 10 minutes. Wear this headset so we can communicate.”
Looking at the oval Bluetooth headset handed over by Jiang Chao, Lin Chen refused. “The hostage-taker suspects that he has a bug in his head, so he’ll be afraid of something that looks similar.” After he said this, Lin Chen took out his phone and called Jiang Chao’s number. Jiang Chao pressed the answer button subconsciously. “We’ll use our phones. You can hear the conversation between me and the hostage-taker.”
“But Consultant Lin, how should we coordinate our actions?”
“Two plans. First, wait for the special forces to get the micro-headsets. Second, I’ll go in first.” Lin Chen glanced out the window. The building opposite the hospital was covered with a navy-blue glass curtain wall. “At that time, the sniper positions of the special forces should be placed on the upper floor of that building. The telephone communication may have poor sound quality, but you should be able to see me from there.”
“But you don’t have binoculars. You won’t be able to see us!”
“I don’t need to see you.” While speaking, Lin Chen walked towards the office entrance and made a secret gesture to Jiang Chao in the corridor. “When you see this gesture, kill the suspect immediately. Do not hesitate.”
Jiang Chao was taken back. “Please handle with caution. It’s my wife inside. The last time our bureau dealt with a hostage-taking crisis, a police officer shot and killed the hostage taker but was questioned for his action by the media. In the end, the officer was reprimanded.”
Lin Chen knew Jiang Chao was reminding him for his own good, so he replied seriously, “If you choose to appoint me as an expert in negotiation, then please trust my judgment in this matter on whether to kill the hostage taker or not.”
Jiang Chao nodded and stopped talking.
“Please give me a gun,” Lin Chen said. “Just in case.”
Jiang Chao was stunned again.
Suddenly, the hostage-taker roared in the office. “What are you holding in your hand? Put it down! Put it down!”
“Hurry up!” Lin Chen urged.
Jiang Chao immediately took out his gun and handed it over.
Lin Chen patted Jiang Chao on the shoulder and loaded the pistol. “Please rest assured. I am a professional, and I will rescue your wife.”
Jiang Chao was still as nervous as before, but when he heard this, his eyes suddenly flushed, and he nodded vigorously.
Lin Chen turned and walked to the neurosurgery office, surrounded by a circle of security guards at the front of the entrance.
After he approached, he discovered that it was the walkie-talkie in the hand of the security captain that stimulated the hostage-taker. The walkie-talkie would make noises from time to time, which frightened him.
He patted the security captain on the shoulder, showed his ID, and said, “I am Lin Chen, a psychology consultant for the police. I will be in charge of this negotiation. Take your people and withdraw immediately.”
His voice wasn’t loud enough for the encircled security guards to hear clearly. At this moment, the hostage-taker by the window also realized he was there.
“Who are you? Go away! Go away! All of you, go away!” the hostage-taker shouted.
The security guards withdrew one after another. Lin Chen took a step forward and finally saw the appearance of the kidnapper clearly.
What was different from his imagination was that it looked like a social elite around 40 years old. He was still wearing his business suit and an ash-colored plaid tie. His hair was combed back and held with gel, revealing his forehead. Although his clothes were messy, his entire body looked shiny and smooth. The only thing that didn’t match his entire outfit was the long-handled watermelon knife in his hand. The blade was stuck to the neck of a white-robed female doctor. That should be Mrs. Jiang.
Lin Chen nodded at the other party. Although the tables and chairs in the office were overturned and looked chaotic, Mrs. Jiang didn’t seem panicked. She had her hands in her pockets and looked extremely calm.
“Negotiator?” she asked.
“I’m Lin Chen,” he replied.
Lin Chen saw Mrs. Jiang’s eyes light up. She wanted to say something else, but at this moment, the hostage-taker became manic again when he heard them speaking. He used the watermelon knife and pressed it against Mrs. Jiang’s neck and angrily said, “Who let you talk?! Who?!”
Lin Chen looked at the watermelon knife, then scanned the office again, but he didn’t find anything like a briefcase. The hospital security guards were neither blind nor stupid. It was impossible to miss a mentally ill person wielding a watermelon knife without stopping him. This showed that the “elite” in front of him used some special method to bring in the knife.
Lin Chen frowned. The other party showed obvious criminal intent, organizational behavior, and even certain concealment, which was somewhat inconsistent with the symptoms of patients with schizophrenia.
Only then did he realize that the current situation in the office could have some problems compared with his previous speculation.
He looked at the clock. Two minutes had passed.
“Sorry, I was just confirming the safety of the hostage,” he said to the hostage-taker. “I am the police negotiator in charge of this negotiation. My name is Lin Chen. You can tell me anything you want. I will try my best to meet your requirements.”
“Negotiator? You’re not here to negotiate with me. I don’t want to talk to you. It’s you police who put it in my head. I know you’re here to kill me!” The hostage-taker stuck the blade together to Mrs. Jiang’s neck. “Back, back, back to the door.”
Lin Chen was unmoved. His tone changed as he said sternly, following the words of the hostage-taker, “Since you’re clear that we police installed a bug, then you should know that only we can take it out. If I leave now, you won’t be able to take that thing out for the rest of your life.”
“You’re threatening me. Believe it or not, I’ll kill someone and then commit suicide. I’ll commit suicide!”
“I advise you to cooperate with the police.” While Lin Chen was talking, he took two more steps forward. The hostage-taker backed away again and was forced to take a position close to the window. “We all know what you’re thinking. You can’t escape.”
“Don’t come closer!” The hostage-taker exerted force on his hand, causing Mrs. Jiang to groan in pain. Traces of blood finally appeared on her neck.
Although her life was threatened, Mrs. Jiang was still calm and composed. Lin Chen could clearly see that at the moment when a trace of blood appeared on her neck, Mrs. Jiang narrowed her eyes and shook her head slightly at him.
Of course, the chief doctor of the neurosurgery department also had the ability to judge and identify schizophrenia. Lin Chen thought that Mrs. Jiang had already noticed something.
He looked at the time again. It would take five or six minutes for the special forces to arrive at the fastest. He was afraid it would be too late.
Upon seeing this, he pretended to be successfully intimidated. He backed away again and said to the hostage-taker, “Since I can’t come closer, can I back up?”
The hostage-taker breathed a sigh of relief, then quietly looked out the window.
Lin Chen said, “You’re really the smartest subject I have ever seen. When did you find out that we installed a bug in your head?”
“Half a month ago. I heard your secret call. You said that you want to control me and steal our company’s secrets!” While speaking, the hostage-taker began to beat his head violently with his hands.
“But…” Lin Chen smiled slightly. “We installed a bug in your head, not a microphone. How can you hear us?”
Hearing this, the hostage-taker was obviously stunned. His eyes rolled slightly, then he suddenly raised his voice and said nervously, “Radio waves. I can receive your radio waves!”
“Your ability is really beyond my imagination,” Lin Chen mocked.
At this moment, he saw the window on the opposite side finally open. Jiang Chao had poked his head out. Even though he couldn’t see Jiang Chao’s expression, he was pretty sure that if he were wearing a Bluetooth headset at this moment, Jiang Chao would probably be desperately telling him not to irritate the hostage-taker.
Lin Chen withdrew his gaze, spread his hands, and comforted him. “But, if we want to take away the bug, we have to operate on you, and the neurosurgeon you’re holding hostage is the best neurosurgeon in this hospital. How about you let Director Li go and we take you for surgery?”
“No, no, no!” The hostage-taker moved another step back and finally sat on the window. “Don’t lie to me. You can take it out as you put it in. If I let this woman operate on me, how will I know you’ll really take it out or you might just kill me on the operating table!”
“That makes sense.” Lin Chen nodded. He put his hand in his pocket and took a few steps forward. “Okay, then I’ll help you take the thing out now, okay?”
Before the hostage-taker could speak again, Lin Chen quickly took out the gun from his pocket.
The moment the hostage-taker saw the gun, there was an obvious moment of shock.
“We usually inject it with a hand-held gun. If you shoot yourself in the head, the bug will be destroyed, and you’ll no longer be under our control.”
He held the handle of the gun, pointed the muzzle towards the hostage-taker’s position, and looked at him.
There was a moment of hesitation in the eyes of the elite.
Lin Chen was getting closer to the hostage-taker. He made a gesture to hand over the gun, and the hostage-taker also stretched out his hand suspiciously.
However, at the moment the other party’s hand was about to touch the gun, he clearly saw an extremely fierce look in the eyes of the hostage-taker, and the silver blade swung in an instant. Lin Chen grabbed the other party violently and pulled the trigger decisively, shooting the elite in the temple.
……
Within about three minutes after he shot, he felt that the person who died was him. His thinking and consciousness seemed to be detached from his body and dissolved into the surrounding environment.
Lin Chen didn’t know whether he was standing, sitting, or kneeling, or whether the color of his sight was blood red or dark black. It took a long time for screaming, vomiting, and whispering to return, but those sounds were very indistinct to him. The gunfire caused severe tinnitus. His eardrums were ringing, and he was in a state of confusion.
But when he could feel pain, it meant that he was alive.
Lin Chen shook his hands gently, and then realized that his resilience was stronger than he thought. He began to be able to see the bloody wound in his palm that was shaken by the recoil of the gun. It had opened up and was bloody and disgusting.
He looked around. Surrounded by snow-white walls that had posters of things like human anatomy diagrams and operation instructions pasted on them, he realized that he seemed to be sitting in some kind of office.
The sound of running water from a water dispenser bucket sounded. Lin Chen looked around and found a lady pouring water. After he looked carefully, he found that it was the hostage that he had rescued just now.
“Consultant Lin, drink some water first.”
Mrs. Jiang put one hand in her pocket and walked towards him, holding a paper cup.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
The beautiful and strong lady nodded. “Thank you for saving me, but I feel that your problem seems to be more serious than mine.”
Lin Chen took the water cup. The smell of blood coming from him made it impossible for him to swallow anything. “Sorry.”
So he held the water but didn’t drink it. The temperature from his palm made him recover gradually, and he found himself covered with a thin blanket at some point.
At this moment, the door to the office was pushed open. Before he could see the figure clearly, Jiang Chao’s voice came ringing in his ears. “Consultant Lin, that was too dangerous just now. Thank God for your quick action!”
Although he usually felt that Jiang Chao occasionally talked too much, such a familiar voice now sounded extremely warm.
“Mm,” he said lightly.
“I thought you would have a good negotiation with him, but I didn’t expect you to provoke him again and again. This is a bit different from your style.”
“Because I made a mistake in my judgment at the beginning. I’m afraid the hostage-taker target has always been your wife. He just wanted to use schizophrenia to escape legal punishment after murdering your wife.”
All issues pointed directly to AIH, but it still took a lot of time to investigate the true motivations of Xiang Ye and Meijing, which was something they couldn’t rush.
Besides, until now, all they could do was inform AIH to pay attention to financial risk and dissuade Song Shengsheng fans from attending large-scale gatherings. In addition, Lin Chen couldn’t think of what else they could do in this short time.
After the inquiry work was over, Jiang Chao forcibly drove him to the Second People’s Hospital next to Yongchuan’s Second Bureau. According to Vice Captain Jiang, his beautiful wife worked in the neurosurgery department. Naturally, a wound suture like his wouldn’t need the deputy chief physician of neurosurgery to address it, so Lin Chen went to the urgent care department by himself.
The one who stitched up his wound was a young doctor. As soon as Jiang Chao sent him to the treatment room, he slipped away under the pretext of buying water.
Lin Chen suspected he was just taking this opportunity to greet the leader of his family, but a good relationship between husband and wife was still enviable.
He sighed softly and suddenly heard the doctor ask, “How did you get hurt?”
Lin Chen was distracted and was just about to speak when the doctor poured hydrogen peroxide to wash his wound. This was probably the standard procedure for the hospital, but the disinfectant was so painful that he couldn’t even scream.
“Cut myself on porcelain pieces,” he reluctantly replied.
“Ah, it’s pretty bad,” the doctor said as she began to use a soft brush to clean up the debris that might still be stuck in his wound.
It still hurt. Compared to this doctor’s skills to Xing Conglian’s, Xing Conglian’s could be considered gentle.
Thinking of this, he subconsciously looked at the two scars on his arm. The knife wounds had healed, and new flesh had grown out. Some of the red scab hadn’t yet fallen off, and it was mixed with the white of his skin, looking a bit off putting.
Most likely, it was because he was looking at the knife wound on his arm that the doctor also looked over. The doctor then raised her voice as she asked, “What do you do?”
Lin Chen thought for a while and answered truthfully. “I do consulting work for the police.”
The doctor breathed a sigh of relief and said, “No wonder. I thought you looked too gentle, and this didn’t seem like it was due to a fight.” She paused, picked up the needle and thread with tweezers, and prepared to sew his wound. “Police work is very dangerous.”
Lin Chen nodded and said nothing more.
At this moment, there was a sudden noise outside the room. The door wasn’t closed, so the sound floated in from the corridor. A team of security guards were running through the halls, causing all the surrounding patients to stare.
Lin Chen frowned. At the same time, his phone suddenly rang.
The ominous premonition in his heart became stronger. The doctor was busy stitching up his wound, so he glanced at the other party and picked up the phone with his other hand.
Jiang Chao’s anxious voice came from the other end. “Consultant Lin, Consultant Lin!” There was an easily detectable tremor in his voice.
“I’m here. What’s wrong?”
“My wife is being held hostage with a knife on the fifth floor in the neurosurgery department. Can you be a negotiator?”
The clinic room was too quiet, so Jiang Chao’s words were easily heard by the doctor. “What… How could this happen?!” the doctor said anxiously.
“I’ll be there soon.” After Lin Chen finished speaking, he hung up the phone. “Cut the thread,” he said to the young doctor.
……
10,000 kilometers away in the Republic of Angodo, which was adjacent to the Dana Rainforest, Xing Conglian was looking at the Xazi Mountains to the southwest. Thick, dark clouds covered the mountain tops, and the entire Dana Valley seemed to be shrouded in a humid shadow of death.
Of course, the so-called shadow of death was just his inner thoughts. After all, since he was sitting in a small bar hundreds of kilometers outside the rainforest and witnessing mercenaries with live ammunition wandering around outside, it would bring him an inexplicable sense of displeasure. He had been away from such a life of gunfire and explosions for too long, and now he had just returned to his old job, so it was inevitable that he would need time to adapt.
The lights in the bar were dim. Unlike the luxurious bars in developed countries, Dana’s bars only needed to provide three things: alcohol, sex, and, of course, drugs. These three things were also the most common payment methods here, besides gold. Piles of beer were stacked behind the bar, and the wooden shelves were filled with spirits in simple packaging. A kerosene lamp was the only light source in this bar. The decorations in the bar were all ivory, and the precious ivory was crudely carved. Seeing the precious ivory being roughly carved and hung on the wall so casually, Xing Conglian only felt pain.
Across from him sat the owner of the bar named Garstini. Garstini meant python in Dana, which wasn’t a good word. Usually, bars were always equipped with beautiful and flirtatious proprietresses and tough thugs, but the rules in Dana were different. The owner of the bar was a mighty and majestic Gaomeng man with a shaved head and mustache, which didn’t match his body shape, while his bodyguard was a thin girl who wasn’t any taller than 1.6 meters. Xing Conglian’s gaze swept over the muscle lines of the female bodyguard as well as the guns fixed with black belts to her arms, waist, and thighs. It was clear that a woman who could survive in Dana must be extraordinary.
Behind him, Kang An put down his backpack, took out three gold bars from it carelessly, and patted them on the table.
Gold touched people’s hearts, and it didn’t need any verbal guidance. The bright color emitted by the gold alone made the idle mercenaries outside the window look over subconsciously. The soldiers showed a malicious, bloodthirsty gaze, but when they saw the Gaomeng man sitting across from them, they quickly narrowed their gaze, changed from a jackal to a wilting mole, and left bitterly.
The bar owner also retracted his gaze from out the window. The interesting actions of the mercenaries obviously satisfied his vanity. He glanced at the gold on the table again; his eyes revealing clear satisfaction, but he said, “Boss Xing, usually this amount is enough, but now, it’s not.”
Xing Conglian had fought many times with the most cunning people from the Gaomeng tribe in Dana for a long time, so he didn’t say a word but looked back at Kang An. In the short time he stood up, Mr. Kang had already stuffed the gold bars back into his backpack.
The next moment, the boss’ female bodyguard drew her gun and pointed the muzzle at Xing Conglian’s chest. Xing Conglian lowered his head slightly and glanced at the slender woman in front of him, avoided the muzzle indifferently, and continued to walk out.
“Stop!” he heard the female bodyguard shout in the Gaomeng language.
Before her voice fell, Kang An had already grabbed the bodyguard’s gun with lightning speed and pulled the trigger.
The bullet passed through the woman’s ear and shot out the window. The floor-to-ceiling window of the bar cracked in response, and the glass shattered. The bar owner hugged his head in despair, but his bare head was still pierced by some of the glass fragments.
Xing Conglian couldn’t help but glare at Kang An and scold, “Why are you so violent?”
“Boss, I… This is not… I… got angry when I saw her pointing the gun at you!” Mr. Kang shouted righteously.
Xing Conglian didn’t say anything else to Kang An. He pointed to the stool at the other table and motioned for Kang An to bring him another one.
He sat down opposite the bar owner again. Although the situation had reversed, the bald Gaomeng man still raised his head. “Boss Xing, I’m afraid it’s not good for you to be so violent at my place, right?”
“I can do as I want. There’s nothing wrong with it.” Xing Conglian glanced at the wound on the top of the other man’s head as he spoke casually.
“Even if you kill me, I can still guarantee that neither you nor your subordinates will be able to get out of this area safely.”
“I’m here to buy things, not kill people. Are you Gaomeng people so delusional?”
Hearing what he said, the owner seemed to have misunderstood. He slammed the table heavily and said arrogantly, “You don’t have the attitude of buying things. Double the price or there will be no discussion!”
Doing business in this kind of three-way zone was so troublesome.
Businessmen had no integrity, and they would never negotiate if they could grasp it clearly.
Xing Conglian leaned back in his chair and glanced at the young man who had been hiding in the corner.
Wang Chao swallowed and emerged from the shadows timidly. “Boss, can you not speak with such harsh words?”
Xing Conglian knocked on the armrest impatiently, causing Wang Chao to bow his head to the bar owner and look like a meat mountain. He spoke in fluent Gaomengnese. “Hello, Mr. Moda Nar. I am the chief secretary, attendant, and sidekick of Boss Xing. I’m ordered by my boss to inform you that your eldest son, who’s studying finance in Italy, and your younger son, who’s in his sophomore year of high school, are under our control. We know that you have lost your fertility due to an infectious disease, so the two of them are your only offspring. If my great boss and his two subordinates can’t reach your tribal settlement smoothly, you can say goodbye to your family.” As he said this, he took out his phone and brought up two candid photos. Two equally majestic and might Gaomeng teenagers appeared on the phone screen.
The face of the bar owner turned blue at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Xing Conglian let out a low cough. Wang Chao hurriedly put away his phone, bowed, and said, “I sincerely wish your family all the best.”
The laws of the jungle were as such. Unreasonable people could live longer than reasonable ones.
After Wang Chao retreated, the bar owner, who was the second son of a distant cousin of the leader of the Gaomeng tribe, quickly changed tune. His eyes were full of anger, but his mouth was as sweet as honey. “Handsome Boss Xing, the son of Qi Naer of the Gaomeng tribe, is willing to help.” While speaking, he clapped his hands and said to his bodyguard, “Kanachal, go get my most expensive wine. I want to have a drink with our most distinguished guest.”
The moment the bar owner bowed his head and softened his attitude, his bodyguard instantly turned into a tender little woman.
Hearing that she was going to get the wine, the woman with muscles as hard as iron gave him a meaningful look, then swayed her figure and walked towards the bar.
The owner of the bar spoke again. “Honorable Boss Xing, it’s not that I don’t want to lead the way for you, it’s just that today’s rainforest isn’t like yesterday’s. The god of the rainforest has sent down a punishment from heaven. Anyone who trespasses will not be spared.”
Hearing this, before Xing Conglian could speak, Wang Chao said “so stupid” behind him.
Fortunately, Wang Chao spoke Chinese. Otherwise, if the Gaomeng man heard this, they would most likely have another fight.
Xing Conglian narrowed his eyes slightly, leaned back in his chair, and asked, “Can you tell me specifically what this ‘divine punishment’ is?”
The bar owner trembled. He leaned over quietly and said gloomily, “It’s death.”
“There has to be a way to die or some form of death?”
“No one knows. No one knows… The world falls into madness, and dead bodies pile up like mountains. Ashes will be everywhere, and even the Xazi Mountains will turn snow-white.” The bar owner clutched his chest devoutly, closed his eyes, and recited, “This is a prophecy—a prophecy of the end of the rainforest.”
When the Gaomeng people talked about things like death, they revered it as mysterious and mystical. Xing Conglian curled his lips, but Kang An and Wang Chao were visibly nervous.
“Boss!” Kang An grabbed the shoulders of his shirt tightly.
Xing Conglian thought for a moment and frowned. “What does madness mean? Does it mean that many people in the forest have gone crazy and disappeared? And what does it mean that corpses are burned to ashes? Did the Gaomeng people give up on burial?”
The bar owner closed his eyes tightly and kept his mouth shut, refusing to say another word.
When Xing Conglian wanted to press the issue, a sweet female voice came from his side.
“Distinguished sir, your drink.”
The bodyguard put down the wine tray, and there were two glasses of pure black spirits in the goblet. Before he could react, the woman took one of the glasses and turned around to sit on his lap.
The other party hooked his neck, pressed on his shoulders with her plumb breasts, and gently rubbed her ass between his legs.
The owner of the bar laughed loudly. “Mr. Xing, my Kanachal rarely likes someone. You might as well stay a little longer. I’ll let her accompany you. I guarantee that her skills in bed are some of the best in Dana.”
Xing Conglian looked at the woman snuggled in his arms. He looked into her amber eyes and said lightly, “Get off.”
His words were straightforward. The woman in his arms leaned back, spilling half of the spirits in the goblet and splashing it on his snow-white shirt. Xing Conglian looked at the stain on his chest and said coldly, “Don’t make me say it again.”
The woman who had been softened into a puddle of spring water instantly turned back into a tough female bodyguard. She slammed the goblet down so hard that Xing Conglian suspected she would pull a gun from somewhere on her body and shoot him in the head.
But he didn’t care about it. He bypassed the spilled glass of wine, picked up the glass belonging to the bar owner, and took a big sip.
The strong wine was extremely spicy. Mixed with the long, wet breeze from the window, Xing Conglian let the wine pass through his mouth. Such a strong taste made him think of Lin Chen when he kissed him hard. He could clearly feel Lin Chen’s hot body under his shirt, as if it were about to burn.
He looked at the liquid in the cup as deep as night. The dark color was like Lin Chen’s beautiful eyes.
He suddenly wanted to recklessly take Lin Chen to his side, in spite of everything. He didn’t know how Lin Chen was doing; whether he would encounter new dangers in dealing with the follow-up issues, and he didn’t even know if that idiot Huang Ze would harass Lin Chen again while he was away. Simply put, the reason he wanted Lin Chen to be here was only because he needed him to, not because Lin Chen needed his protection or for some other reason. This kind of thing that was beyond his reach and seemed to be out of his control hadn’t happened to him for many years.
In the distance, sporadic crossfire sounded, and further away, was the sound of mortars.
Xing Conglian sighed. He certainly couldn’t bring Lin Chen.
In a field of glass ballast, amidst the sound of gunfire, he took another sip of wine. He subconsciously looked to the southwest, but his vision was obscured by the Xazi Mountains.
‘I hope you are well in my absence,’ he thought as he gently set down the goblet of pure black liquid.
……
While Xing Conglian was wishing him well, Lin Chen’s situation wasn’t good.
This wasn’t because he was forced to cut the suture short and rush up to the fifth floor after he just got stitches, nor was it because of the hostage situation he had to deal with that involved Jiang Chao’s wife, but because the hostage-taking situation itself was far worse than he imagined.
Although Vice Captain Jiang Chao was already as anxious as an ant on a hot pot, urging him to enter the neurosurgery doctor’s office to start the negotiations, Lin Chen stubbornly stood outside, listening in detail to the interns who had just escaped from the office.
There was no Xing Conglian and no Wang Chao, so he didn’t have the invisible wireless headset or surveillance that could be retrieved at any moment. He could only use the most primitive method of inquiry to get a better grasp of the situation.
In front of him, a male intern looked so nervous as if he was about to be overwhelmed.
“Let me sort out my thoughts. Just now, a man with a knife entered the office and just started slashing for no reason. Then he took a hostage at the entrance. Director Li took the initiative to replace herself with the other hostage. The other party followed her suggestion, so now the current hostage is Director Li, right?”
The intern covered his face in shame, and his eyes flushed. “I’m sorry. I’m useless… I… I’m not a man at all. I actually let Director Li take my place… my…”
Lin Chen patted the man on the back and said with relief, “It’s Director Li’s will as your teacher to replace you. We all hope to rescue her smoothly, but only if you can answer my question calmly. First, has the hostage-taker made any demands? What I mean is, has he made it clear what he wants?”
“He… He said someone put a bug in his head and asked us to dig that thing out!” the intern said seriously.
Lin Chen frowned slightly and asked, “So is the hostage-taker a patient you have treated before?”
Several interns looked at each other and couldn’t answer this question for a while.
“I don’t seem to have seen him.”
“Me neither, but I’ve only been here for half a year.”
“Where are the nurses?”
Lin Chen turned his head and asked.
The nurses who were huddled together also shook their heads one after another. “We haven’t seen him before. He’s not a patient in our department!”
Once upon a time, someone planned a similar incident in order to play with human nature, arouse the malice of bystanders, and at the same time prove to all the well-meaning people in the world that the ordinary people around you would always be more vicious than you think, and the world was truly bad.
In fact, Lin Chen also thought about the significance of similar games in human nature, but the questions about morality and good and evil in human nature were themselves the ultimate questions for humanity. Countless philosophers, scientists, and psychologists have debated this extensively since ancient times, and with so many people discussing it in their daily lives, it should be meaningful.
However, with Xing Conglian not around, Lin Chen didn’t bother to think too deeply in this direction. He wasn’t engaged in philosophical research. He was just a lovelorn person who was left behind by his crush. Even if he did understand these ultimate questions about mankind, it wouldn’t make Xing Conglian come back a day earlier.
Lin Chen’s mood suddenly faded. He stood up and threw the bloody, broken porcelain in the trash.
Jiang Chao kept yelling in his ears, saying, “This wound is so deep”, “Consultant Lin, you mustn’t”, “Consultant Lin, you have to bandage it”, and so on.
Lin Chen looked back at him and said lightly, “I know. Is there any gauze here? I’ll stop the bleeding first.”
“How can you stop the bleeding? We have to go to the hospital right away.”
Looking at Jiang Chao’s appearance, Lin Chen thought of Xing Conglian. Xing Conglian really knew him.
At the embassy that day, after he finished his interrogation with Li Jingtian, Xing Conglian took him directly to the infirmary for bandage, because he knew he didn’t like hospitals.
But Xing Conglian never pointed this out and embarrassed him; instead, he dealt with it thoughtfully and meticulously.
Lin Chen spread out his hand. He saw the bloody wound on his palm that was cut by the porcelain and felt he was really done for.
He looked back at the police officer, who was tapping on the keyboard quickly after hanging up the phone, and said to Jiang Chao, “I think the result will come out soon, so it’s fine to go later.”
Jiang Chao wasn’t Xing Conglian, so he couldn’t explain to him why he was being so tough. Seeing that he was persistent, Jiang Chao could only nod his head and then immediately run out to get him the medicine box.
Lin Chen sat down next to the computer again and said to the police officer, “AIH Insurance has opened up the inquiry authority for you. Why is this so simple?”
“I said there might be insurance fraud, so the person in charge got nervous. Speaking of which, Consultant Lin, why do you think these criminals wanted to murder fans for insurance? Could it be that all the fans have listed the same beneficiary? Then isn’t it easy for us to find out who that beneficiary is?”
Lin Chen thought for a moment, then replied, “Assuming there’s a common beneficiary—let’s call him Mr. A—how can we prove that Mr. A planned the fire at the Christine Cultural Center? You can’t just say he was going to kill people and defraud the insurance because he’s the beneficiary, right?’
“Then let’s dig deep into the relationship between Meijing, Xiang Ye, and the beneficiary, Mr. A. There will be clues.”
Lin Chen shook his head and said, “First, I’m afraid it’ll be difficult for you to find empirical evidence. Second, I think when you find the relationship, it’s very likely you’ll dig up a huge criminal network. At that time, you must pay attention to your personal safety.”
“Don’t scare me.” The police officer was a little terrified.
“I’m being serious.” Lin Chen patted the police officer’s shoulder. “But don’t be afraid. There are many people around you, including me.”
The police officer let out a laugh that was as absentminded as Jiang Chao. “It’s okay. I’m not afraid of death.”
Lin Chen lowered his head and smiled, patted the other’s head, but didn’t speak again.
The computer issued a notification that the calculation was over, and the policeman hurriedly turned his head. Lin Chen followed suit. Colorful contents appeared on the comparison form. Although he couldn’t sort it out, he still understood something based on the increasingly frightened expression of the police officer.
Seeing that the police officer finally pushed the keyboard away and turned his head to look over in a daze, Lin Chen asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Consultant Lin, the direction you mentioned seems to be correct. It’s very likely that the fire set by Xiang Ye and Meijing was really for insurance,” he said as he held down the form and dragged it to the middle position. “There are three groups of insurance beneficiaries in the same situation. The first group should be a pair of sisters, and the beneficiary should be their own mother. The second group should be a couple whose beneficiary should be their own daughter. The last group is the most suspicious. There are 21 fans who filled out the personal accident insurance for a Doctors Without Borders* organization.”
*A charity that provides humanitarian medical care. It’s a non-governmental organization of French origin known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases.
“Doctors Without Borders?” Lin Chen was surprised. “Can a beneficiary be an organization?”
The police officer took a deep breath, then said, “It depends on the type of insurance, but since the beneficiary is listed here, it means that AIH Insurance approved of the purchase.”
Lin Chen nodded. “What you said makes sense, and I’m about to ask a dumb question.” He paused. “I just find it strange why these fans uniformly filled in the beneficiary for Doctors Without Borders…”
As Lin Chen spoke, he set his sights on the full name of the organization: [MSC Doctors Without Borders].
Lin Chen said to the police officer, “Can you calculate the total insurance amount first and then please check the relationship between Song Shengsheng and this organization and whether he has ever called on fans to donate to Doctors Without Borders?”
“Okay, I’ll check right away!” The police officer started to work.
Listening to the clacking of the keyboard, Lin Chen fell into contemplation again.
Could it really be that Meijing intends to murder more than 3,000 people just for the insurance claim of 21? The payoff was hardly proportional to the cost.
“Consultant Lin, I figured it out. Each person had a payout of 1 million, for a total of 21 million.
“US dollars?”
“Ah… The unit is our country’s currency.”
Lin Chen frowned. The amount was beyond his expectations. He was just about to say something when Jiang Chao finally came back with the first aid kit.
Lin Chen took the medicine box and, at the same time, informed Jiang Chao of the results of their investigation just now.
Vice-Captain Jiang patted his knees and said excitedly, “I know this organization. This is the oldest Doctors Without Borders organization in the world. My wife joined this organization before and also participated in a year-long medical aid operation in Africa. How could an organization like Doctors Without Borders scam people? I think it’s unlikely, right?”
Lin Chen nodded again. Jiang Chao’s words actually made sense. There was no reason for a Doctors Without Borders organization to do this. He opened the first aid kit Jiang Chao handed him and casually rummaged through it, looking for something.
Seeing that he wasn’t saying anything, Jiang Chao began to ramble again. “But this beneficiary unit is too strange. I think there does seem to be a problem with it. I’ll investigate it later. Consultant Lin, what do you think is going on?”
Lin Chen didn’t answer. He opened the bottle of hydrogen peroxide and poured some on his hand nonchalantly. Jiang Chao was dumbfounded. “Consultant Lin, you’re being too rough.”
Lin Chen grimaced in pain, then looked at the technical officer and asked, “Have you found the relationship between Song Shengsheng and MSC?”
The other party nodded and clicked on the news report. “You guessed it right. Mr. Song Shengsheng did donate a lot of money to this MSC organization ten years ago. Although he didn’t directly call on fans to donate to Doctors Without Borders, since he took the initiative to do so, it still made a huge appeal. The so-called insurance beneficiaries may be decided through internal discussion within small fan groups. We won’t know the specific situation until we find these victims and ask them about it.”
“In other words, it may be just coincidence that the beneficiary of the personal accident insurance of the 21 fans is Doctors Without Borders?” The severe pain made Lin Chen sober. He picked up the gauze to wipe the blood from his hand.
“Maybe?” The police officer said, “But 21 people, isn’t this much?”
21 was indeed a clever number. It wasn’t so prominent among the more than 3,000 victims, but it would definitely become a clue for the police. Lin Chen finally realized that what Meijing and Xiang Ye were planning might be far beyond their imagination.
He thought again about the problem that Meijing kept constantly tricking him on the rooftop. Meijing himself wanted to use the revenge theory to cover up the insurance problem of AIH. What if this 21 was also a trap?
Lin Chen wiped away most of the blood clots and then changed the piece of gauze and pressed it on the wound. “First answer me this. Is there a high proportion of Song Shengsheng’s fans who buy AIH Insurance?”
“Among 3,021 people, a total of 1,922 have purchased insurance from AIH. Although I haven’t done a specific difference analysis, this ratio is relatively high.”
“Nearly two-thirds?”
“Correct.”
“So, if we put aside the beneficiaries, it should be AIH Insurance that will suffer the most economic loss if their action was successful.”
“Shit, Xiang Ye and Meijing aren’t trying to bring down AIH, are they?” Jiang Chao said.
Lin Chen frowned. Although Jiang Chao was just asking a rhetorical question casually, Lin Chen felt this might be the answer. “First calculate the total amount of insurance that AIH Insurance needs to pay.”
When the police officer heard this, he stared at him with wide eyes. “That’s probably an astronomical figure. Even if it were 2,000 people at 1 million each, it would total up to 2 billion.”
“Is it enough to bring down AIH?”
Jiang Chao took a deep breath. “Consultant Lin, your speculation is too scary, but AIH is a multinational insurance giant. Compensating such an amount shouldn’t be enough to bankrupt them, right?”
“The total amount is 4.5 billion,” the police officer said.
Jiang Chao almost bit his tongue. “So high?”
“I remember that a certain country once experienced a terrorist attack. The amount of fire insurance claims after the attack directly led to its bankruptcy. The total amount of claims that the company had to pay is about 3.5 billion.”
“But I still don’t think this number can really hurt AIH’s foundation,” Jiang Chao insisted.
“Whether the injury is foundational or not needs to be judged by carefully studying AIH’s financial report. If the company is in a period of internal losses, there may be some problems.” Lin Chen pressed the gauze on his palm tighter. “But I really don’t know anything about financial matters. This is just simple speculation.”
“No, no, your speculation does give us a general direction!” Jiang Chao said with emotion. “Hurry up. I’ll send you to the hospital right away. Don’t get caught up in the sequelae. I can’t have Lao Xing cut me to death!”
Lin Chen barely heard Jiang Chao’s words. He fell into contemplation again, but this time he wasn’t thinking about Xing Conglian, but another thing. Since it took up to ten years to plan behind the scenes for this incident, their purpose couldn’t be just simple revenge or targeting a certain Doctors Without Borders organization. It may not even be that they wanted to bring down a certain multinational insurance company. The three purposes may be mixed together, so what if there was a fundamental purpose that they weren’t aware of?
When thinking of this, Lin Chen felt chills all over again. At the same time, he also felt they were lucky. If the people behind the scenes had made any mistakes in the past ten years, it must be that they chose the wrong person to implement their plan.
Fortunately, Song Shengsheng persisted.
Lin Chen couldn’t help thinking like this. This was really an extremely fortunate outcome, but it was also awfully sad.
He seemed to see that blond young man standing in front of him again, patting his chest proudly, and looking at him with a big smile.Looking at Song Shengsheng’s figure, Lin Chen thought, ‘It’s amazing that you persisted for so many years. Just leave the rest to me.’
As long as hard work was put in, anyone could make progress quickly.
Lin Chen read dozens of pages of materials again, took advantage of the tea break, and went to the network department. The two police officers inside were working overnight shifts as well. They took turns lying down on the table to rest, as if they couldn’t bear it anymore.
Seeing him push the door and enter, the one who was still awake looked at him blankly as he waved to him.
After all, this wasn’t the police station where he worked, so Lin Chen didn’t know the name of the other party. He could only nod his head and drag a chair over and sit down.
“You’ve worked hard,” he said to the police officer, who was still awake.
“Not as hard as you. How many hours have you not had a good rest? Just look at your face.”
Lin Chen lowered his head and took a sip of tea. Jiang Chao’s subordinates made him speechless, just like him.
But to be honest, since Xing Conglian and Wang Chao left, he really hadn’t had a good night’s sleep. Every time he wanted to close his eyes and rest for a while, countless pictures would flash in front of his eyes, one after another. For a while, it was a picture of Xu Ran being hit, and for a while, it was the scene of Song Shengsheng’s death. In short, those images that left the deepest impression in memory were also the easiest to emerge from the subconscious when the consciousness was relaxed. The one he thought about the most was Xing Conglian.
Lin Chen pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to wake himself up from this bad state.
Only the sound of the computer case was left in the office. The police officer smiled awkwardly a few times, not knowing what to say.
“There hasn’t been any progress so far, right?” Lin Chen held his teacup as he asked.
The other party nodded. “After cross-comparison, all the fans of Mr. Song Shengsheng seem to have nothing in common. Whether it’s age, life experience, locations, and the like, the only thing they have in common is gender.”
“Well, if they want to select victims, they will always use some statistical method to make it less easy for us to find the problem.” Lin Chen thought for a while and suddenly looked up at the police officer in front of him. “There’s another possibility. The personal files stored on the internet are still relatively simple. There should be something that isn’t on the file that’s very important, but we haven’t found it until now.”
“Like what?”
‘That’s a good question.’ Lin Chen fell into contemplation.
There were too many things that weren’t counted in the archives, such as what they bought on Taobao or if they had bought a book today… But the reason why Meijing and Xiang Ye chose Song Shengsheng’s fans was most likely because Song Shengsheng had influence over his fans, and most of the singer’s influence on the fans would be reflected through works and advertising endorsements.
Lin Chen remembered that Wang Chao had once made him a collection of Song Shengsheng’s MVs and advertising works. He patted the police officer next to him on the shoulder and asked the other party to open up his email and bring up the documents Wang Chao had sent.
Then he discovered that because too much time had passed, the files sent by Wang Chao had expired and couldn’t be downloaded.
Lin Chen subconsciously took out his phone, then realized he couldn’t call the teenager now. There would no longer be that sweet voice on the other end of the line.
He looked at the contact number in a daze for a while, until the voice of the police officer next to him called him back.
“I’m sorry. The information has expired, so I have to trouble you to collect it again.”
“Don’t say that. You’ve been helping us.” The other party scratched his head embarrassedly and suddenly said, “Why don’t you just transfer over here?”
Lin Chen was taken aback. He didn’t know where Jiang Chao’s men could come up with such whimsical ideas.
“I’d better not. My original unit is quite good.”
Before he finished speaking, Jiang Chao’s applause suddenly came from the door.
Lin Chen turned his head and saw Vice Captain Jiang clapping his hand twice. He patted his subordinate’s shoulder heavily and said to him, “Seriously, Consultant Lin, you should think about it. Hongjing is a small city. I know you and Lao Xing aren’t the types who pursue higher glory and officialdom, but as you can see, Yongchuan is a big city with a dense population. Criminals especially like to commit crimes here. Besides, don’t worry. You and Lao Xing have solved so many cases together. If Lao Xing is transferred, his rank will probably be just as high as mine.”
Lin Chen sighed inaudibly. He couldn’t tell Jiang Chao that the reason Xing Conglian chose Hongjing was because he wanted to live a less exciting retirement life. But speaking of it, Xing Conglian’s position in his retirement career may have undergone some deviations since he appeared.
“Let’s talk about it when he comes back.” Lin Chen could only evade like so.
“Hey…”
Jiang Chao sighed heavily as he pulled over a chair and sat down beside him. “What are you doing?” He asked the police officer, who was looking at information.
“Consultant Lin gave me a direction. I’m looking for some information.” As he spoke, he looked over again. “Consultant Lin, it will take me some time to find the materials. Would you like to take a break first?”
Lin Chen shook his head and took another sip of tea. “No, I’ll wait for you here.” He paused and then said, “I thought for a while. What Xiang Ye and Meijing planned should be a relatively slow-acting thing. Otherwise, they wouldn’t spend more than ten years waiting. This, of course, is most likely related to Song Shengsheng’s imprisonment. I’m afraid there are reasons for the time I just mentioned.”
“You’re very reasonable, but it really takes some time to check the materials from ten years ago.”
Lin Chen nodded. He rested his head on one hand and thought about the MVs and commercials he had seen. The pictures in his mind were switched frame by frame, and he felt the answer should be obvious, but in the last two days, almost all his thoughts were occupied by Xing Conglian, and any remaining thoughts were distributed to Wang Chao, so there wasn’t much energy to think about the problem.
What Jiang Chao said earlier wasn’t wrong. The real motivation of Xiang Ye and Meijing was an urgent matter, while he had more time to clearly think about the rest.
Thinking of this, the pictures in his mind suddenly stopped.
Song Shengsheng’s appearance in an advertisement appeared before his eyes. At that time, Song Shengsheng was still young. He was wearing a cap and huge sunglasses, and his collar was pulled extremely high, as if he were hiding someone. Subsequently, the ad screen gradually cleared. Lin Chen remembered that it should be in a hospital space. He carefully avoided the doctors and patients passing by, making people think he seemed to be up to no good. After a very thrilling period of time passed, he suddenly opened the door of the ward, then took something from his pocket and sprayed it into the air.
“Bang, bang, bang!”
He shouted.
As the ribbons fell from the sky, everyone in the ward was stunned. At this moment, the first person to react was a little girl lying on the hospital bed. The little girl covered her face and cried, looking very excited.
Song Shengsheng hurried over to hold the little girl in his arms and comforted her, like a prince charming in a fairy tale. He said to her in a gentle tone, “Sorry, my princess. I’m late.”
The subtitles then appeared, which showed: [AIH Insurance. Protecting you for a lifetime.]
A chill ran down his spine, and the porcelain cup in Lin Chen’s hand crashed to the floor.
The police officer lying on the table suddenly straightened up and shouted, “What happened!”
“Consultant Lin, what’s the matter?” The other police officer looked at him worriedly.
“Insurance… Have you checked the insurance of Song Shengsheng’s fans?”
“Yes, most people are on social security, so there are no problems there.”
“I’m not talking about social security. It’s commercial insurance.”
“It’s not in the file, so you have to go to the major insurance companies to compare the lists.”
“You don’t need to go to the major insurance companies. Just go to AIH.”
The police officer nodded. Although he had many doubts on his face, he immediately called the Yongchuan branch of AIH and communicated with the operator on the other end of the line.
Jiang Chao sat aside and listened inexplicably. His face was gloomy as he asked in a low tone, “Consultant Lin, what does this mean? Could it be that Meijing and the others wanted to burn thousands of Song Shengsheng’s fans to defraud the insurance company? Isn’t this something we can find out as soon as we check the beneficiary of the insurance?”
When Jiang Chao was talking, Lin Chen was squatting down to pick up the broken porcelain. Hearing Jiang Chao’s question, he couldn’t help but clench the porcelain in his hand uncontrollably.
No matter which part of AIH Insurance Xiang Ye and Meijing tampered with, using Song Shengsheng’s appeal to induce fans to buy insurance and then kill those fans, the sinister intentions were beyond normal logic. This was more like a ruthless mockery: Look, in the end, it’s not your favorite person who makes you buy things you shouldn’t buy but kills you.
Even though he couldn’t confirm whether it was an insurance issue or not, if Meijing managed to kill Song Shengsheng’s fans in the end, he couldn’t imagine what the public and media would say after learning about it.
And it was only now that he realized what Meijing said. The innocent victims in this fire would become brain dead fans. Many would say that if they didn’t chase stars, they wouldn’t die, so they deserved it.
How many people could clearly realize that there was no necessary causal connection between fans buying goods endorsed by idols and their deaths? It wasn’t Song Shengsheng who killed them; it wasn’t the insurance products that killed them; it was the malice of the forces behind the scenes that killed them.
But how many people who adhere to the true concept of right and wrong would clearly recognize this?
Lin Chen lowered his head and released his hand. His palms were flushed. Jiang Chao gasped violently in front of him but didn’t dare say a word.
Some people would say, “So that’s what happened. Who made them rush to buy things endorsed by idols.”
Some people would say, “I told you before that you shouldn’t buy things endorsed by stars. It’s all a waste of money, but this time it wasn’t just a waste of money but also a waste of life.”
Some people would say, “Maybe Song Shengsheng conspired with his agent to kill fans for money.”
Seeing such a similar statement would make anyone who was kind from the bottom of their hearts despair for human nature—and this was probably what Xiang Ye and Meijing wanted.
He suddenly thought of the question Wang Chao had asked. “Have you ever seen an extremely evil world?”
The Dana Rainforest was located in the middle of the Titan Basin. It covered an area of about 2.3 million square kilometers and was the second largest tropical rainforest in the world ten years ago. However, ten years later, due to the destruction of the forest caused by mining, the area of the rainforest was greatly reduced. All this content could be found by opening an encyclopedia, but there was only a small mention of the status quo of the rainforest, which was divided up by major armed factions that fought endlessly year round. Even the large and terrifying numbers of refugees weren’t mentioned.
Of course, the Dana area was listed as one of the six no-fly zones in the world by the FAA. Not only were there militants and refugees, but there were all kinds of ferocious beasts and uncivilized, primitive cannibal tribes. Most terrifying was the raging epidemic of infectious diseases due to the low level of medical and health care.
A virologist once joked that the area with the deadliest virus samples in the world wasn’t the central virus database of any country but the Dana Rainforest. This was actually not a joke, as he almost failed to get out alive.
Xing Conglian was keenly aware of the danger of this mission that he couldn’t give Lin Chen any promises. After all, the cruelest thing was to give up and let it be shattered.
Lin Chen shouldn’t have to experience such cruelty.
The flight was about to land in an hour. Kang An had sorted out all the materials on the table very doggedly, looking extremely guilty. Wang Chao was desperately stuffing pure water into his backpack while Xing Conglian just sat on his seat and kept tapping the table repeatedly.
He suddenly thought of Lin Chen again for no reason. If Lin Chen were here, he would definitely use a peaceful tone to analyze why Kang An was so anxious and kept hesitating to speak. But now that Lin Chen wasn’t here, he could barely guess what was going on in his subordinate’s head. Kang An’s request for help might put their lives in danger, so it made him uneasy.
In front of him, Mr. Kang was sorting out materials at a terrifying speed, as if he wanted to devour all the materials. Xing Conglian glanced at his subordinate and stopped tapping the table.
Kang An was so frightened that he wanted to throw out all the materials in his hands. Xing Conglian glanced at Wang Chao and said, “Go to the bathroom for a while.”
Wang Chao looked at them blankly for a moment, then suddenly shivered and fled to the bathroom as if he had sprouted wings, not forgetting to plug his ears as he ran.
“Mr. Kang, tell me what’s going on.”
The next moment, Kang An kneeled to the ground with a thump, refusing to look up at Xing Conglian.
“Mr. Kang, we are a formal department. Don’t engage in the underworld, okay? The scenes of deep relationship between a master and apprentice and guilty pleas are not very useful in modern dramas. My time is precious, so I’ll go back if there’s nothing major.” Although he said this, in fact, he knew better than anyone else that Kang An wouldn’t come to a retiree like him for help if he hadn’t encountered an extremely difficult problem that couldn’t be handled.
Finally, his subordinate raised his head, and his eyes were red. “Captain, this matter is all my fault. Xiao Wu and A’K might be crazy.”
“Go to a doctor if they’re crazy. Why come to me?”
“They disappeared along with thousands of people who were about to be slaughtered by the Gaomeng Tribe.”
“If they’re missing, find someone to look for them. Do I look like I’m a professional person finder?”
“It’s not like that, Captain. Something happened in the rainforest, and no one knows what. Xiao Wu and A’K suddenly went insane during the investigation process, and we lost contact. As far as I know, a similar situation has already occurred in the Dana Rainforest. Dozens of incidents occurred in major armed groups nearby, and some are saying it’s a curse…”
Xing Conglian wasn’t surprised at all. He said calmly, “Don’t talk about the paranormal. I still can’t do anything about curses and witchcraft.”
“Captain.” Kang An kneeled solemnly with his back straight. “Captain, I’m with Xiao Wu. Please save him.”
Xing Conglian looked at his subordinate, who was kneeling on the ground, in disbelief that he had almost spilled the water on the table.
……
Naturally, Lin Chen didn’t know that Xing Conglian was going through the biggest test of his career, which was how to correctly deal with the love problems of two former subordinates of the same sex. In face of this matter, any mysterious incident in the Dana Rainforest or the entrapment of thousands of people were suddenly pushed back a bit.
For Lin Chen, after the initial loss, there was a long and difficult period of worry.
The sky was getting brighter outside. Earlier today, Xiang Ye was in the detention center. Although the guards were already extremely strict, Xiang Ye still found an opportunity to cut this femoral artery. If a person wanted to die with all his heart, he would always find a way. He didn’t go to the scene, but according to Jiang Chao, Xiang Ye’s blood was splattered everywhere; seemingly, he died a miserable death.
For him, Xiang Ye’s death was an inevitable outcome, like the struggle between two people since ancient times.
However, Jiang Chao was still brooding over Xiang Ye’s death. For this reason, he was dragged by Jiang Chao to work overtime on another night shift. The second division of Yongchuan was filled with the sweet and bitter taste of instant coffee. The police station at night was still busy with official duties, and there were constant phone calls and the sound of police officers rushing in and out.
Lin Chen felt it was quiet, however. There was no sound of Wang Chao chewing potato chips or eating any snacks around him, and Xing Conglian would not suddenly make him a cup of tea and set it on the table, then pull him away from a case to relax and chat for a bit.
The handwriting on the computer screen began to blur. He was just checking the personal files of all members of the Song Shengsheng fan club. In fact, he suspected that some filtering procedures were embedded in Xiang Ye’s and Meijing’s ticketing system for the Song Shengsheng fan meeting. Only certain members were selected. Because for Meijing, he had to strive to obtain the maximum benefit from any action. However, looking at more than 3,000 different materials, Lin Chen once again became confused.
Only when he manually investigated the case would he find that he missed Comrade Wang Chao even more. For this kind of thing, if he gave it to Wang Chao, he would get the exact result in half an hour.
He looked at his phone. It had now been more than 50 hours since Xing Conglian and Wang Chao suddenly left, which meant that Xing Conglian and Wang Chao had reached any point on the earth. And yet, so far, his phone hadn’t rung once. Although he knew that Wang Chao and Xing Conglian had their reasons for not telling him, wasn’t it reasonable to tell him that they were safe or that they would be leaving for a bit after landing? Since they hadn’t reported their safety, it meant what they were doing wasn’t safe.
He wanted to call Xing Conglian, but when he picked up his phone, he put it down again.
After all, Xing Conglian had said, “I’m very sorry” before he left, and he didn’t even add “Wait for me”. After the irritating period when he heard this, Lin Chen gradually calmed down. He began to analyze the relationship between him and Xing Conglian and started to think about the deep meaning contained in what Xing Conglian had said to him.
If Xing Conglian said, “It’s not a big deal. Let’s talk when I come back”, then the problem shouldn’t be serious and he would do as he said.
And if Xing Conglian had said, “I’m very sorry. Wait for me.”, then the problem should be relatively serious, but it wasn’t unsolvable.
But he only said, “I’m very sorry”, which meant that the situation may be out of Xing Conglian’s control, so he couldn’t make any promises to come back.
Perhaps after watching the computer for so long, Lin Chen felt pain in his eyes. He propped his elbows on the table and covered his eyes with both hands. He really rarely had this kind of moment where he was at a loss and felt powerless. He didn’t even have a direction to find someone. He didn’t know what was going on, he didn’t know who the man was who was wearing the rubber green boots, and he didn’t know why Xing Conglian would suddenly make up his mind to give up his peaceful life and leave resolutely. Now the only clue he could grasp was the cigarette Xing Conglian was holding in his hand.
He was considering whether he should go to that small shop next to the Xinni Embassy to find out more about that pack of cigarettes. Thinking of this, he had already grabbed his coat and stood up.
“Consultant Lin…” Just as he stood up, a long call sounded behind him.
Lin Chen turned around and saw Jiang Chao’s smiling face.
“Captain Jiang, is there something wrong?”
Jiang Chao rubbed his hands, then his face, and said excitedly, “Consultant Lin, your hunch should be right. There really is a specific list filter module on the ticket distribution system for the Song Shengsheng fan club, but we can’t grasp what it is yet.”
Lin Chen was taken aback and was unable to recover from his thoughts just now. “What did you say?”
Jiang Chao’s eyes glowed, which was the look that police officers would have when they reached a breakthrough during an investigation. “Meijing and Xiang Ye should have wanted to kill certain fans of Song Shengsheng. You’re right. Their attack was premeditated and well organized. Most likely the motives aren’t just to retaliate against us police!”
Lin Chen nodded and patted Jiang Chao on the shoulder a little absentmindedly. “Mm, a major breakthrough. Keep going.”
“Consultant Lin, where are you going?” Jiang Chao asked suddenly.
“Out for a break.”
“Then… have you finished reading Song Shengsheng’s fan club information? What do they have in common? The members of my other two groups have also been studying, but there has been no breakthrough yet.”
“I haven’t finished reading it yet. I’ll tell you if I have news.” Lin Chen was about to bypass him and go out.
“I know, I know you’re tired and in a bad mood because Lao Xing left. Then do you think I can accompany you for a walk? Just around the police station compound. The scenery there is quite good. Later, you can get a few hours rest in the lounge, and I’ll give you a call,” Jiang Chao said earnestly.
Lin Chen glanced at the position at the door without nodding.
“I’m mainly afraid that I haven’t found out the exact motives of the criminals. What if they want to organize another attack on Song Shengsheng’s fans? This is an urgent matter.”
Indeed. Compared with the thousands of fans who could be in danger again, he didn’t need to worry too much about his two extremely capable friends.
Lin Chen sighed. He put down his coat and sat down again in front of the computer.
I hope you guys return safely.
He tilted his head to look at the sinking sun outside the window.
At least that was what he thought, and he certainly did, but not before he took a step forward.
“Boss!” The man behind him shouted loudly.
“Damn it, I retired a long time ago.” Xing Conglian kept walking forward irritably.
“Coordinates (7°11’S, 24°45’W), Kang An, the knocker, was ordered to ask you for help.”
His former subordinate emphasized solemnly.
Xing Conglian suddenly stopped, turned around, and asked, “Dana Region?”
“Yes.” He examined the stubborn-faced subordinate in front of him, and his gaze finally fell on the cigarette the other party was handing out.
At that moment, all he could think about was Lin Chen, but he still stretched out his hand to take the cigarette. He took out a lighter, lit it, stuffed it into his mouth, and took a puff.
“What the hell happened?” he glared as he said solemnly.
“The Gaomeng Tribe has imprisoned thousands of people and is preparing to start a massacre. We have no way to find the exact location where they’re being held, and negotiations have reached a deadlock. Please leave immediately. The direct flight from Yongchuan Airport is on standby.”
Kang An kept whispering in his ears. When he heard the coordinates, he knew exactly how urgent the situation was, but he didn’t want to say a word now. Xing Conglian raised his eyes and began to search for Lin Chen’s figure among the people moving around in the square. He saw girls sitting on the ground with frightened faces and firefighters who were still rushing towards the fire, but he didn’t see Lin Chen.
After an inefficient search, he thought he could still call him. He took out his phone and dialed Lin Chen’s number, but the long disconnected tone made him feel at a loss.
“Boss, the flight is on standby,” the annoying voice urged in his ear.
“Can’t I have a little privilege?” He started running towards Wang Chao.
“Boss, you can’t.”
“Then give me five minutes.”
The voice behind him became more irritating. Xing Conglian opened the door of the car. Wang Chao had already packed all his luggage and was looking at him with a sad face. “Boss, can I not go?”
“Quickly locate the location of your A’Chen Gege’s phone. I can’t find where he is.”
“What?” Wang Chao’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Can we really take A’Chen Gege with us?”
“Dana Rainforest, Gaomeng Tribe. Do you think it’s appropriate?”
Wang Chao quickly lowered his voice. “Then… Then don’t do it. It’s too dangerous. A’Chen Gege is allergic to antibiotics, so he can’t go to that kind of place…” Wang Chao became more discouraged. “Do you know what happened, Boss?”
Hearing this, Kang An interjected. “Boss, this is a top-secret operation. It’s forbidden to leak to outsiders of the system, and who is this A’Chen?”
“The regulations are written by laozi. You think laozi doesn’t understand better than you?” After Xing Conglian finished speaking, he knocked on Wang Chao’s head irritably. “I told you to find someone, so stop talking nonsense.”
Wang Chao quickly opened his laptop and began to search for the GPS location of Lin Chen’s phone while muttering, “Boss, what should we do about A’Chen when we leave? It’s so sudden, and I feel like A’Chen isn’t in a good mental state. Will it be hard for him if we’re not there…”
Xing Conglian’s brows furrowed tighter. He remembered Lin Chen’s despair and pain when he kissed him. If it weren’t for being forced to the extreme, how could Lin Chen suddenly erupt just now? Since Lin Chen’s attitude was clear, it was obviously very irresponsible for him to suddenly leave now. If there was enough time, he really wanted to pull Lin Chen aside and tell him everything, but he didn’t have enough time, and he didn’t have a way to tell Lin Chen where he was going, what he was doing, when he would be back, or the possibility that he may never return.
The geographic location of Lin Chen appeared on the screen. Xing Conglian glanced at it, confirmed the location, and ran there, but before he could run two steps, he found Kang An was following him.
“Are you this fucking annoying?” He turned around and cursed with a cigarette in his mouth.
“Boss, there are two minutes and eleven seconds.” His former subordinate, dressed as a bricklayer, tapped the children’s electronic watch on his wrist and urged.
“Don’t follow me. Give me two minutes.” Xing Conglian changed his tone and requested politely.
“No,” Kang An replied without hesitation.
Xing Conglian was speechless. He even wanted to beat him up.
There were too many people in the square, which really hindered his movements. He had to avoid many people carefully. When he saw Lin Chen, Kang An counted down behind him telling him there was only thirty seconds left.
In the distance, Lin Chen was squatting near the wounded area to comfort a little boy. Some golden sunlight shone through the dense clouds and fell on Lin Chen’s side. Lin Chen had a peaceful face and gentle eyes as he was talking to the crying little boy.
Looking at Lin Chen’s side face, at that moment, Xing Conglian had a feeling of unwillingness for the first time in the world. It was enough to leave the world fucked.
Lin Chen rubbed the little boy’s head. When he turned his head, he happened to see Xing Conglian running. Lin Chen squatted on the ground, looking at him blankly.
Xing Conglian ran to Lin Chen. He just wanted to say goodbye at that time, but the moment he saw Lin Chen, he didn’t hesitate to pull him up from the ground and hug him tightly.
At the moment of being pulled up by Xing Conglian, Lin Chen felt dizzy for a short time. It may be because he squatted for too long or Xing Conglian used too much force, but when he reacted, he had already leaned against Xing Conglian’s shoulder. Xing Conglian was embracing him with his other arm.
When he kissed Xing Conglian just now, the other party was calm, but now, he didn’t know why Xing Conglian’s emotional reaction was so intense. Was this the manifestation of too long of a reflex arc?
What made Lin Chen even more confused was the meaning of this hug. He didn’t know why Xing Conglian suddenly rushed towards him and hugged him tightly. He lowered his head slightly, and at first sight, he saw the golden thread wrapped around the edge of the cigarette that Xing Conglian was holding. He looked up and saw an eager stranger standing behind Xing Conglian. He saw the other party’s green shoes and the cigarette pack in his hand and instantly understood something.
“What’s wrong?” He leaned on Xing Conglian’s shoulder and asked faintly, amidst the occasional cries of pain from the wounded.
“I’m very sorry.” The next moment, Xing Conglian replied in his ear.
Lin Chen was taken aback and took half a step back. This wasn’t the answer he expected. There was no agreement or rejection in this answer. This may not even be a response to his confession.
But what exactly are you sorry for? He really wanted to ask Xing Conglian bluntly like this.
If you don’t like me, don’t. If you don’t want to accept my feelings, don’t. Don’t force your feelings either. How can you be sorry?
Just when he decided he would ask clearly, Xing Conglian took a deep look at him and then turned around without hesitation, so that he didn’t get a chance to even say a word.
Xing Conglian’s receding back disappeared into the crowd as the dark clouds covered the last ray of sunlight. Lin Chen looked up that sky and covered his eyes with the back of his hand.
……
Xing Conglian left, and so did Wang Chao.
They left so suddenly without saying anything to anyone, so when Jiang Chao found Lin Chen cleaning up the scene, he swore at those two.
“Fuck, they just leave whenever they want. That’s too irresponsible!”
Jiang Chao pulled out his phone and called Xing Conglian’s number but he only got “The number you have dialed has been disconnected.”
“It should be something urgent.” Lin Chen replied with some simple speculations. In fact, he didn’t blame Xing Conglian and Wang Chao for not telling him. After all, he was convinced that something that could make Xing Conglian act this way was far more important than finishing up the aftermath of this case. Xing Conglian had never been an irresponsible and ignorant person.
He looked at Jiang Chao seriously and said, “Please take back what you just said. It’s very excessive to use ‘irresponsible’ when evaluating Xing Conglian and Wang Chao.”
Jiang Chao hurriedly apologized. “Sorry, Consultant Lin. I’m sorry. I just have a bad mouth, but, Consultant Lin, don’t you live with Lao Xing? You have such a good relationship. How can you not know where they went? It must be really urgent then.”
Lin Chen bowed his head slightly. Jiang Chao’s words were truly lacking in tact.
Indeed, although he was living in Xing Conglian’s home, he didn’t know where Xing Conglian and Wang Chao were going or what they were doing. In fact, their previous acquaintance was probably an illusion after a mutual whitewash. Xing Conglian didn’t know his past, and he didn’t know Xing Conglian’s. He even wondered if he should even return to Yanjia Lane.
After all, what was a home without its master?
Rarely was Lin Chen so confused. He felt as if his heart had been hollowed out.
He silently followed Jiang Chao to deal with the follow-up matters on the scene. After all, human attention was a limited resource. When he was busy, he wouldn’t have to think about too many things for the time being.
For example, where did Xing Conglian and Wang Chao go, whether they would be in danger, when they would return, or whether they would really come back. Although these questions occasionally appeared in his thoughts, they would soon be suppressed by the matter at hand, but the scenes that occurred in that dim underground space would continue to flash before his eyes. Sometimes it was the blackened face of Xing Conglian, and sometimes it was when he wiped his tears away with his hands. Lin Chen looked down at the time. Xing Conglian had only been gone for about five hours, and he had probably already thought about him hundreds of times.
The night was sultry. The surroundings were dark, and the mosquitoes were dense. The dark clouds that had been smoldering for the whole day didn’t turn into thunderstorms. The people at the cultural center had gradually dispersed.
Lin Chen closed his notebook and put the ballpoint pen into his pocket. He thought about some details of the case and walked towards the police car with Jiang Chao.
“It’s still necessary to investigate the backgrounds of all victims in detail to find out the common ground. Meijing and Xiang Ye must have a more secret purpose behind this,” he said as he walked.
“Consultant Lin, you haven’t heard anything from Lao Xing yet?” Jiang Chao began to touch subjects he shouldn’t be touching.
“Yes, no.”
Lin Chen got into the car and found that he could already calmly answer this question.
On the return trip, he specifically asked Jiang Chao to take him to the entrance of the subway station, where Xing Conglian had parked his Jeep. Sure enough, the vehicle he was very familiar with was parked alone in the parking space at the entrance to the subway. Wang Chao’s pillow, snacks, and comic books were randomly thrown in the back seat. The location of the sundries was the same as when they got off, which showed that Wang Chao and Xing Conglian didn’t even have time to return to the car to get necessary items.
After Jiang Chao saw all this, he became a little nervous. “Consultant Lin, Lao Xing didn’t even take the car. Could it be that something happened? Do you think we should report a disappearance?”
“No need,” Lin Chen replied with great certainty.
……
Thousands of miles high.
Through the porthole, Xing Conglian looked at the red sunset outside the window, a little distracted.
He was still wearing the sweat-soaked shirt after the fire. When he got on the plane, he just washed his face and started his new job.
Kang An kept explaining the latest situation opposite him, but his voice had completely disappeared as he was distracted. He could only feel that someone was talking on the opposite side, but he automatically blocked out the sound. This was naturally unprofessional behavior, but when he looked at the increasingly bright sky outside the window, he couldn’t help but think about something else.
……
Lin Chen said goodbye to Jiang Chao but didn’t intend to check into his hotel room immediately.
The hotel Jiang Chao booked was an express hotel where he and Xing Conglian stayed last time. The river at the entrance was still quiet, and the snack street was still bustling.
Lin Chen put his hands in his pockets and walked down the street at will. There were countless people drinking and partying in the food stalls. Whether they were lovers or friends, they were happy clinking cups and drinking merrily. Those people were talking and laughing. Then, their voices were mixed in with the smoke from the stove, like countless clouds of joy steaming up from the long street.
The streetlights were dim, and the night was getting darker. Lin Chen didn’t know how long he had been walking. When he came back to his senses, he was standing in front of a crayfish shop called “Reunion”.
The meaning of the name of the shop was really good. He looked at the store sign and walked in.
He ordered a serving of spicy crayfish and a plate of roasted peanuts but didn’t order beer.
When the dishes were served, heavy rain started falling outside the shop.
As Lin Chen kissed Xing Conglian hard, his fingers dug deeper into Xing Conglian’s hair, pressing his head down. It was pure emotional venting. At this moment, he didn’t need to care about Xing Conglian’s feelings or the ethics and morality of the world. He just wanted to kiss the person he had liked for a long time. He really couldn’t help it, because only Xing Conglian’s lips and the breath he sprayed onto his face could make him feel that there was warmth in this world. It felt as if he had walked on an ice field for a thousand years, and couldn’t help but pounce on the creature that made him feel warm, absorbing its heat.
He didn’t dare to open his eyes to observe Xing Conglian’s expression, but he didn’t hesitate to pry open Xing Conglian’s lips and teeth. The breath they exchanged was scorching; it was so hot that it could burn all his shackles; it was so hot that it could make him gradually float from the cold, deep sea.
The singing gradually became louder and filled his ears.
The sudden high notes seemed to heat up with the kiss. The pain that had penetrated deep into his bones was gradually broken by the scorching tingling. He kissed deeper and deeper, trying to draw the power that could keep him alive from Xing Conglian’s body. Their lips and teeth were glued to each other and couldn’t be separated. He raised his other hand and forcefully hooked Xing Conglian’s neck, holding him tightly.
The slow and lengthy kiss shattered the ice, blood, illusion, and pain on his body. The scalding temperature that was gradually rising seemed to evaporate all the tears. He wished that time would pass more slowly. It would be great if he could stay in this moment forever.
Lin Chen continued kissing Xing Conglian. He seemed to see a vision of Xing Conglian standing at the door frame the first time they met, smiling at him with bad intentions.
He seemed to have returned to that moment. He took the other party’s hand and gave him a light peck on Xing Conglian’s beautiful eyelashes at that time.
At that moment, he felt Xing Conglian move. Xing Conglian’s palm gently touched his cheek. Lin Chen could feel the rough calluses and hot temperature from his hands. Xing Conglian was wiping away the tears that were falling down his cheeks.
It was a gentle gesture, but Lin Chen really understood the meaning of it.
That’s enough. You can stop.
Lin Chen lowered his head and separated his lips from the other. He pushed Xing Conglian away, took a half step back, and gasped gently.
Only the sound of the two of them panting at different frequencies remained in the air.
At the moment he kissed Xing Conglian just now, he clearly saw the shocked look on the other party’s eyes, like an emerald that was green to the extreme when it shattered, but now, he could no longer find that look on Xing Conglian’s face.
Now, Xing Conglian had a calm expression, and he looked at him with deep and distant eyes, remaining silent.
The underground space was dark and quiet. The singing in his ears gradually stopped, and the previous hallucinations disappeared. Lin Chen’s heart started to become clearer, and because of the clarity, he could already foresee what would happen in the future. The relationship between him and Xing Conglian would change. With Xing Conglian’s personality, he wouldn’t pretend to be blind and deaf and whitewash this incident. Either he or Xing Conglian would leave. They would soon part ways, with no further communication.
But it was too good. Xing Conglian was just too good, which made Lin Chen reluctant.
Lin Chen raised his head, straightened his back, and said solemnly, “I’m sorry. It was a unique opportunity in my life just now, so please consider me. I’m a good candidate.”
After saying this, Lin Chen took another half step back, bowed his head sincerely, then turned and left.
……
Wang Chao was sitting in the police car.
The surrounding singing had stopped. For some reason, the sky had darkened inexplicably, and there were thick clouds covering the sun.
The fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances were pouring into the square one after another, while many cars were driving away from the fire. Those vehicles made beeping noises that resounded in the sky, causing his scalp to go numb as he sat in the car. There were water stains everywhere on the ground as the water kept flowing.
Wang Chao changed the direction of his cocked legs, but he still didn’t feel comfortable enough. He looked at the car’s air conditioning. It clearly showed that it was working, but the inexplicable suffocation was truly unpleasant.
He put down his laptop, leaned against the car window, propped his head with his hands, and tried to adjust to a more comfortable sitting position, but he still felt uncomfortable.
He inadvertently glanced away while adjusting his position. Through the dense crowd, he saw a figure coming from the other side of the square.
The man was wearing ordinary army green plastic rubber boots. His lower body wore the same style army green trousers and were pulled up high. There was a large area of dry mud at his ankle. Wang Chao’s gaze slowly moved up, seeing a blue and white striped T on the man’s body that looked to be from the 1970s, and he was carrying a red and white striped snakeskin bag. Then he finally looked at the man’s face.
He opened his mouth wide, thinking he was hallucinating.
In the next second, Wang Chao quickly closed his eyes, hoping to use the restart action to adjust his brain’s visual system. In short, anything was fine, as long as the illusion would quickly dissipate.
He counted down from three seconds, and when he opened his eyes again, that figure and that terrifying face really disappeared.
He breathed a sigh of relief, then hurriedly took out his phone and sent a text: [Fuck, A’Kang Ge, I just saw a person who looks very similar to you, and it almost scared the piss out of me. I should’ve taken a picture for you to see.]
The other quickly replied to the text message: [Really?]
[*Nodding vigorously like a pecking chicken!* If I didn’t know you were on a mission in Niger, Java, or some extraterrestrial galaxy, I would’ve thought I was in hell!]
[Hehe]
Another short reply came back without even punctuation. But soon, another text message came: [You know where the Boss is? I can’t find him.]
[Boss—the Boss and I have just experienced a test of life and death. It was truly enduring. You really should come to the scene and see our mighty figure!]
Wang Chao was eager to finish sending this message when he realized that he hadn’t answered the question in the text. When he wanted to send a follow-up, he focused on the last few words: [I can’t find him.]
It was as if he were at the scene…
Wang Chao muttered silently. He touched the phone screen and was about to reply when another text message popped up.
It was still short: [I’m here.]
The surrounding was silent for a moment, then Wang Chao felt goosebumps all over his body.
Tap, tap, tap…
At this moment, the slight sound of the car window being tapped was heard. Wang Chao shuddered and turned around slowly like a ghost.
Sure enough, the man wearing the 1970s shirt with a snakeskin bag was standing at the window, bending slightly and looking at him with a grin, showing a row of snow-white teeth that were so bright, they glistened.
……
Xing Conglian stared at Lin Chen’s distant back, gradually regaining his composure from his violent heartbeat. Until Lin Chen’s figure disappeared at the end of the corridor, he was still staring in a daze.
Lin Chen had just desperately kissed him. This was obvious. And he was completely shocked, which was also obvious.
Although he wanted to think about when Lin Chen had started to develop feelings for him beyond friendship, at this moment, his mind was full of Lin Chen’s expression when he kissed him; pure, hot, desperate, scorching like fire. He could feel the pain in Lin Chen’s soul, and he could also feel the deep love Lin Chen expressed in that kiss.
That kind of love actually made his heart burn, like honey flowing from a beehive with an amber-translucent luster that was both beautiful and sweet.
He also discovered in a very short moment that being loved by others was just like that beautiful and sweet honey.
However, Lin Chen actually pushed him away…
Xing Conglian sighed, realizing that kissing just once wasn’t enough. He wanted to experience it again.
But since Lin Chen kissed him, that meant he should like him. When he confirmed this, he was surprised to find that all the methods he had learned to deal with problems were useless. To make matters worse, he found that his turbulent life was such a mess that he hadn’t had time to learn how to deal with emotional problems correctly. He really wanted to grab Lin Chen and ask him if this was an emotional defect.
However, since Lin Chen made his statement, naturally, he must also make his own. Therefore, he was thinking about whether he should go up, grab Lin Chen, and kiss him again, or whether he should carefully consider their future and various risks after being together before making a decision.
Since Lin Chen had been by his side, he should be able to figure out these contents quickly. In short, he couldn’t let Lin Chen wait too long.
With such a happy thought, he walked slowly upstairs. The crowd at the scene of the fire had been evacuated. The next step was a series of heavy follow-up work. Whether it was to assess the damage, the follow-up investigation, or even the motivation mentioned by Meijing, all of these must be investigated again.
He raised his eyes and looked around. He didn’t know where Lin Chen had gone. The weather was a bit gloomy, and the sudden dark clouds brought a lot of dampness. He took a deep breath and felt the sudden coolness in the air. The next moment, he saw Wang Chao frantically packing things in a police car, looking like he was trying to escape. He didn’t know what was going on in that kid’s head.
Xing Conglian started walking towards Wang Chao’s position.
At this moment, he heard someone calling him. The voice seemed familiar. When he looked back with difficulty, it was as if he had been struck by lightning.
Not far behind him stood a young man dragging a snakeskin bag. The man’s skin was dark, but his teeth were as white as silver.
Xing Conglian turned his body around.
The man walked towards him and made a very standard salute.
Xing Conglian was just about to say something, when he saw the other party quickly took out a box of inferior ten-yuan cigarettes from his pocket and handed one out. The swift movement seemed determined not to give him any chance to react.
“Boss, Kang An, the door knocker, was ordered to ask you for help.”
His former subordinate said so.
Xing Conglian looked at the circle of fine gold threads inlaid on the edge of the cigarette under the sun. His first reaction was to turn around and leave.
“The sudden fire at the Yongchuan Christine Cultural Center affected the hearts of all citizens. It’s reported that more than 3,000 infatuated fans who were originally going to attend Mr. Song Shengsheng’s memorial service are trapped in the fire, including the staff of the cultural center, who didn’t evacuate in time, and dozens of police officers who rushed to the fire to participate in the rescue.”
“According to the trapped personnel who fled the scene, they revealed to reporters that there were many fire points in the center, most of which were located around trash cans, and the fire protection system in the art center was damaged due to unknown reasons.”
“At the same time, relevant news said that the Lake Ludi Tunnel and Yongchuan Avenue were severely blocked, causing delays for rescuers to enter the Xining Development Zone.”
……
Countless messages spread through countless phones and calls. Many people were crying and asking for help, and some were hugging each other.
Lin Chen looked around from a distance. His phone hadn’t rung since the rolling gate fell. Many people around him were making calls, but it seemed no one could successfully connect them.
If it weren’t for the sound of him running while communicating with someone, getting into a car, then panting violently through the headset, he would’ve felt as if he were on an isolated desert island. All the surrounding scenes would be the same as those filmed in any disaster movie.
After the initial panic, the desperate cries for help came next.
Some people slammed on the door repeatedly, while others tried smashing windows. In the same way, some people continued to rush down from the second floor. Obviously, even though the windows were smashed, the escape speed couldn’t keep up with the flow of people.
What was more, the floor plan for the Christine Cultural Center once again appeared in Xing Conglian’s mind. Although they were now on the first floor, they were equivalent to the fifth floor of an ordinary residential building, so it was extremely dangerous to escape from the window.
Small explosions, fires, network disconnections, blocked communication, difficulties in escaping, and failures in the firefighting system were all the dilemmas they were facing…
Moreover, he looked at the performance information board that originally stood upright. The screen was completely black, and the scrolling subtitles disappeared, so now there was another problem… Power failure…
He quickly analyzed the situation. There were indeed many problems, but that didn’t mean that they were really in a desperate situation. There was always a source of all problems, and they could always be solved. He looked to his side and asked, “What’s wrong with the communication?”
Wang Chao was drenched all over. Water was dripping from his hair, but there was no despair in his eyes. He took his laptop out of his backpack energetically. The first thing he said was, “Fortunately, I bought a waterproof backpack. Comrade Xiao Wang is so smart.”
Although this was out of place, it was rare that Xing Conglian felt relieved.
The current situation was indeed more difficult to deal with than that of the Ansheng International Mall that day. The power failure and loss of wireless connectivity meant that they couldn’t use the broadcasting system to appease the masses. Looking at the phone screens that were lit up in the darkened space, Xing Conglian asked, “Can I send a group text?”
“Mass distribution is no problem. The key is who to send it to?”
Xing Conglian looked out the window and said decisively, “Use the base station to send text messages to all phone users in the signal coverage area.”
“Isn’t this the same as a spam text?!” Wang Chao’s eyes lit up. “Alright, easy-peasy.”
There were only sporadic, light drips of water coming from the ceiling. White smoke was faintly wafting out the window. The fire on the second floor was getting bigger. The captain of the Xining police station wanted to take people to rush upstairs against the flow of people.
Xing Conglian pulled him back and said calmly, “Wait a moment.”
“We have to go up and investigate the situation!”
Xing Conglian looked at the anxious faces of the captain of the Xinni police station and several police officers and nodded. He took out Wang Chao’s tablet, adjusted the floor plan, and said to them, “This is our current situation. This is the second floor. For convenience of description, the locations of the fire rolling gates and emergency fire hydrants are divided into areas A1–A10 from south to north. There must be a huge backlog of people. Be sure to pay attention to safety.” After he finished speaking, he took out four sets of wireless headsets from the backpack. “Sorry, I only have four. Also, this is my number. Please keep in touch at all times after communication is restored.”
He immediately entered a string of numbers into his phone, and several people nodded solemnly to him. Xing Conglian would never forget that kind of look without hesitation for the rest of his life.
……
When Lin Chen received the text message, he had just gotten out of a car. He passed by an anxious father holding his daughter as the owner of the car lowered his window and wished him luck.
He looked up at the skyscraper in front of him, then looked back at the towering cultural center in the distance. Wisps of green smoke began to surround the building. The fire brigade of Xining Development Zone had already driven the only two remaining firefighting vehicles to the scene, but compared to the giant building and the wide square in front of it, the two fire trucks looked like a drop in the bucket.
[The police have received the alarm. For the sake of smooth communication, if there is no emergency, please do not use your phone and do not make repeated calls for rescue.]
Lin Chen rushed into the elevator entrance, pressed the button, and managed to finally read the text he just received.
The elevator door opened, and he stepped into it.
[The fire situation is unknown. Please try to stay in a safe area. Because the floor is too high, please do not try to escape from the window. If you encounter thick smoke, please lie low and keep crawling away from it as you wait for rescue.]
The elevator was climbing rapidly as the scarlet letter kept changing.
[Don’t panic, don’t push. The police will do everything they can to protect everyone’s safety. Please trust us.]
Ding. The sound of the elevator arriving sounded.
……
Inside the rolling gate.
The voices of everyone else reporting the fire continued to ring from Xing Conglian’s headset, but there was no voice from Lin Chen.
“Captain Xing, ahem… The fire situation in the A1 and A2 areas isn’t serious. Due to the fall of the rolling gate, we’re temporarily unable to reach A3 and A4.”
“The fire spread from the nearby fire escape, which made it difficult to evacuate the masses.”
“According to the people who escaped from A5 and A6 just now, the fire is most serious near the central hall, which has the densest flow of people, but the situation inside is unknown.”
Xing Conglian held down the headset and looked at Wang Chao. “Can you contact the fans in the central hall?”
Wang Chao pulled up the numbers from the ticket list of the fan club and dialed them.
……
Mu Wenhua’s phone suddenly rang.
At that time, she was sitting in the front position of the central hall and was writing a text message to her husband. After thinking about it, she deleted the words [Take care of our daughter.].
The screams all around had subsided, and there weren’t many cries. The people who were trying to find the exit also retreated. The surroundings were dark. Except for the green lights from the emergency exits, there was only the light of people’s phones. Looking down from above, it was like a sea of stars shining brightly.
Just now, the backpack of a certain girl in the front row exploded, and flames spread from there. Fortunately, another person next to the girl reacted quickly and happened to be sitting next to a fire extinguisher. They were able to protect the girl and the fire was successfully put out. Except for the few people nearby who had varying degrees of burns, it didn’t cause too serious injuries.
There was already a faint burnt smell in the air, and now the burns weren’t too serious.
Mu Wenhua looked around and pressed the answer button.
……
Lin Chen was still climbing up. The elevator didn’t go to the highest floor. Although Mr. Meijing could be anywhere in this high-rise building, in fact, in a practical sense, he would only be at the highest point, which was the rooftop.
The voice of Xing Conglian kept ringing in his headset. While comforting the fans in the central hall, Xing Conglian quickly grasped the fire situation and recounted it to him.
Firefighters had already started breaking through the door, and the rest of the area wasn’t a big problem. However, the fire started from outside the central hall, so all the fans attending the meeting were trapped by it.
“This is the most serious problem.” Xing Conglian paused. Lin Chen seemed to hear the sound of a cutting machine grinding on the rolling gate. “The building’s own fire protection system has completely stopped.”
“This is impossible. Didn’t the sprinkler system turn on?”
“I’m afraid that the first floor has run out of water from the reservoir, so the sprinkler system on the second floor can’t access it due to a lack of water. If I’m not wrong, there’s a power outage that caused the problem with the fire pump, which can’t pump in more water.”
“Impossible!” Lin Chen ran up the last floor, holding the handrail. The iron gate that blocked the roof was in front of him. “The fire protection system has two backup power sources, and power won’t be cut off even if the gate is closed.”
“Therefore, the intelligent control system of this building has been artificially destroyed.”
“You just said that because of the sprinkler on the first floor coming on, the water reserves of the sprinkler system on the second floor were used up. This means that the culprit didn’t intend to create a fire on the first floor. His target has always been the fans in the central hall on the second floor.” Lin Chen put his hand on the iron gate as his mind was turning. “Xing Conglian, there’s a problem here. Why must it be Song Shengsheng…”
Lin Chen wanted to say something more, but he felt a light pat on the back.
In the blink of an eye, Lin Chen drew his gun and loaded it. Then he turned and raised his hand, but the man behind him didn’t hide or dodge. At that moment, Lin Chen could only see a gentle smile hidden in the man’s eyes.
It was a middle-aged man in a gray suit and black backpack. He had a pair of earplugs in his ears, as if he were listening to some brisk music. Lin Chen aimed the gun at the man’s forehead, but the man didn’t waver and instead kept smiling at him. “Lin Chen, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time. Why did you come here?”
……
Lin Chen had never been called in such a way.
It was very intimate and kind, with a slight upturn at the end, as if it were a parent calling their beloved child or an owner calling their pet to go home.
His gun was firmly placed between the brows of the middle-aged man. The eyes of the middle-aged man were slightly bent, revealing a gentle smile. There was no fear; only harmony in those eyes. The next moment, the other party moved. Lin Chen’s hand pressed on the trigger, but he couldn’t fire. The middle-aged man stretched out his hand and touched his head gently, then pinched his earlobe. In the end, he felt no fear. He quickly moved his head away from the muzzle of Lin Chen’s gun, turned slightly sideways, and pushed open the iron door behind him. “Want to see? Let’s go together.”
There was a strong breeze on the rooftop. The closer one got to the sky, the more dazzling the sun became.
The sky was clear and blue. Lin Chen put away his gun. The other party’s meaning was clear. Even if you have a gun, I can do anything, and you still won’t dare shoot me.
He had to admit that the judgment of this gentleman in this situation was completely different from that of a pure pervert like Li Jingtian.
Lin Chen followed the other party and stood facing the cultural center.
The square was crowded with people. Looking down from the sky was like watching countless ants fight for their lives.
Under the blue sky, he couldn’t see any fires from the silver-white building in the distance, but there was vague white smoke floating above. Lin Chen knew very well that when the raging fire could be seen from his position, it was when the entire building would return to heaven.
The middle-aged man stood next to him, looking down at the chaos under his feet with relief. He suddenly seemed to think of something, retracted his gaze, and stretched out his hand to him. “Lin Chen, it’s our first-time meeting. Let me introduce myself. My name is Liang Meijing. You can call me Mr. Meijing.”
Lin Chen bowed to the other party politely and shook hands with him. “Hello, Mr. Meijing.”
The other party shook his hands, as if he were extremely happy that he was addressing him so politely. “In fact, after the last incident, I wanted to meet you, but I’ve been busy with a lot of things recently, so I didn’t come to greet you in time. I hope you don’t mind.”
“How could that be?”
Lin Chen turned the gun around for half a circle and stuffed it back into his pocket. Mr. Meijing seemed to appreciate this gesture. “Yes, it’s rare for us to have a chance to chat. It’s better to face each other with sincerity than weapons.”
Lin Chen nodded and asked, “Shall we sit down and talk?”
When he asked this question, the middle-aged man’s expression was slightly surprised, but he quickly recovered. “Where do you want to sit?”
Lin Chen answered his question through practical action. He sat down crossed-legged on the rooftop. Although the cement surface was scalding hot at noon, he still sat comfortably. Then he raised his hand and patted the area beside him, signaling the other person to sit with him.
Upon seeing this, Mr. Meijing smiled slightly. He took out a snow-white handkerchief from his pocket, spread it on the ground, then sat down. He looked at the fire scene from a distance. The fire was spreading quickly. In a short time, the orange-red flame had already burned through the glass curtain wall and was threatening to show its teeth and claws in mid-air.
“I remember at that time, your shimei jumped to her death?”
Lin Chen looked at the crow’s feet on the corner of the middle-aged man’s eyes next to him and said calmly, “Yes, the distance between me and her at that time was almost as close as we’re now, but I still couldn’t save her.”
“So when you saw Song Shengsheng’s body, did you feel the same way?”
“What does it feel like?”
Mr. Meijing’s eyes seemed to glow. “Like someone who wants to die. Someone who blames themselves. Why couldn’t I come sooner?”
“Yes, it’s a heart-wrenching pain, but that’s all.”
“I’m really sorry for causing you so much pain, but in fact, you shouldn’t blame yourself too much. Your shimei really died willingly. She even gave me a blowjob the morning before she died. A girl of that age, her father complex was too serious, even for me, so it was difficult to parry. You know, she was also pregnant with my child, but in the end, she miscarried. It’s a pity.”
Meijing gave a wry smile, but Lin Chen could see only ridicule in that smile.
“Why are you telling me this?” Lin Chen pointed to the earplugs in his ears. “This whole thing is being recorded. Can I treat it as a confession?”
“Of course you can.” Mr. Meijing smiled and said, “Lin Chen, my child. I just want to talk to you before you die.”
Lin Chen supported his chin with one hand, propped his knees, and easily pointed to the people around him, then pointed to himself. “Why do you think it must be me who will die between the two of us?”
“Because I have the ability to foresee. Later, you will willingly jump off this building and fall into a bloody mess. I have seen that scene with my own eyes. When you die, it’ll be beautiful.”
Lin Chen tilted his head slightly. The scorching sun was burning him all over. He asked earnestly, “But I don’t want to die yet. What should I do?”
“There’s no such thing as not wanting to die in this world.” Meijing laughed. “Song Shengsheng didn’t want to die either. He has lived like a dog for so many years. In order to survive, I don’t know how many people have raped him, but then what? He still died in the end.”
“Do you really think so?” Lin Chen raised his head suddenly, looking at Mr. Meijing’s helpless face, and said seriously, “If you really think so, I suddenly feel that I have a slight chance of getting out here alive.”
……
The fire spread faster than expected.
As the first member of the fire squadron to rush to the scene, Li Chongyuan felt despair in the face of the behemoth in front of him. The scene was constantly blocked by fire doors. He had been involved in more than ten years of fire rescue, and he would be able to retire honorably in half a month. In his more than ten years of firefighting experience, it wasn’t that he had never seen a fire that was more serious than the disaster in front of him, but at no point was there a shadow of death this intense than now.
He held the cutting machine and used all his strength to cut open the rolling gate in front of him. His teammates had already gone up to the more dangerous fire on the second floor to evacuate the crowd. The flames burned through the glass curtain wall, and there was a violent explosion. According to his experience, even if they gathered 30 firefighting vehicles, it was barely enough to contain the fire. Now that he looked back at the square full of desperate expressions, he continued to hold the machine in his hand tightly.
At the moment the rolling gate was cut open, someone kicked the door open, and a flood of people swarmed out.
He didn’t have time to help the people evacuate, but he looked at the gap in the door and saw two people who were calling non-stop in the corner. He remembered the emergency task assigned by the squadron leader just now and hurried over and saluted. “Hello, Captain Xing. Li Chongyuan of Xining Squadron. I have been ordered to assist you in dealing with the fire.”
The person didn’t pay attention to him immediately, but instead kept listening to the phone with his head down. After a while, he hung up the phone. His tone was calm, without any panic. “Let me briefly report the current situation of the fire to you. The trapped people on the first floor have basically been evacuated through the underground parking lot by the emergency exit. Only our area and the same area on the opposite side have no emergency passage for evacuation, but the main problem now is that it’s difficult to rescue the fire site on the second floor. All emergency exits are blocked, and because of the rolling gates, the fire areas got divided with sporadic people trapped between.” As the man spoke, he showed him all the fire points with his tablet. After he finished speaking, he drew a circle on the largest hall on the three-dimensional map. “The fire is surrounding the central hall. There are 3,000 people in it. Due to the failure of the fire fighting system, the smoke exhaust equipment stopped working. It’s expected that the trapped people will be able to persist for at most 10 to 15 minutes. They’ll die from smoke inhalation.”
Li Chongyuan raised his head suddenly. “It’s too fast. We have too little manpower. It’s impossible to evacuate 3,000 people in such a short time.”
“In your experience, what’s the only possibility for the 3,000 people in the hall to survive?” the man asked.
Li Chongyuan raised his eyes and filtered all the firefighting information from the Christine Cultural Center in his mind. He raised his head and said decisively, “Our follow-up squadron will arrive at the scene in 10 minutes at the earliest. The cultural center adopts an R-level intelligent linkage fire fighting system. We need the fire fighting system to resume operation to reduce the fire for a short time, but it’s not clear what the problem of the fire system failure is exactly.”
“Power distribution room.” Beside Xing Conglian, a young technician said, “I just calculated that the fire fighting system was never activated. There are many fire monitoring points in the building. No one can destroy all the monitoring points at the same time. The fastest way to make the fire fighting system of the entire building fail in a short period of time is to cut off the main power supply. I suspect that the power distribution room has been blown up.”
“Where’s the backup generator?”
He and Xing Conglian asked in unison.
……
The glass curtain wall was constantly cracking.
Everyone stayed away from the building to avoid being hit by splashes. Every small explosion caused the crowd in the square to scream. The turbulent flow of people was constantly pushing and shoving, and no one knew where the next cluster of flames would rise from.
Firefighters raised ladders to rescue the trapped people inside and continued to evacuate as many people as possible. In the end, only the police officers in the navy-blue uniforms continued to rush towards the fire.
Lin Chen looked at the purgatory-like scene under him. Xing Conglian’s voice, deploying on-site personnel, kept coming out of his headset. He gradually calmed down and listened to Xing Conglian’s voice.
As the wind blew across the sky, he pressed the headset and looked at the calm, middle-aged man beside him. “I didn’t hear what you just said.”
“I said, there’s no possibility that you can walk out of this building alive.”
“Why?”
“You’ll know soon.”
“You don’t need to hurry. Since you were waiting for me here and said that I’d be willing to jump off the building to commit suicide, you probably have the confidence to say this because you have many people’s lives in your hands.”
“Lin Chen, you really amaze me.” Meijing had a look of approval on his face. “So are you going to kneel down and beg me?”
“Didn’t you just say that I’d jump from here willingly? My life is in your hands, so there’s no need to kneel down,” Lin Chen said sincerely. “Then before I die, is there any room for redemption?”
“Hahaha.” Mr. Meijing laughed heartily. “Well, I’ll let you ask three questions, just like the game you played with Li Jingtian, but it’s a little more exciting than that.”
“I appreciate further details.”
“Look, we’re now very close to the edge of the rooftop. You can ask me three questions. Every time I finish answering one, you will take a step back. When I finish answering the last question…” The middle-aged man spread out his palm and breathed softly, “You’ll turn around, disappear from here, and go with the wind.”
“Very interesting.” Lin Chen patted the dust off his body and stood up from the ground somewhat casually. He turned his back to the distant fire and stared at the middle-aged man in front of him.
“You seem very confident?”
“Because I’m really good at guessing, so you must remember to hide your thoughts.”
As he said this, he took a step back. “My first question. Why Song Shengsheng?”
……
When Xing Conglian heard Lin Chen ask this question, he was wearing a heavy fire fighting suit.
According to the staff who escaped from the negative second floor, the fire there was also very large, and unless they passed through the fire, there was no way to enter the central control area to find the backup generator controls.
“There’s also an electronic door. I’ll give you the access control card. You must keep it safe and don’t let it get burned.”
A young man who claimed to be the secretary of the general manager of the Christine Cultural Center handed him an access card. He nodded and took it. The light voice from his headset made him hold the card tightly.
He could hear the sound of the wind whistling past the top of the high-rise building. Lin Chen’s voice was almost inaudible due to the wind, but he knew very well that Lin Chen was standing on the edge of the roof, and had taken a firm step towards the line of death.
At that moment, Xing Conglian wanted to get rid of everything and rushed upstairs to grab Lin Chen. He raised his head and looked up at the top of the building, which was more than 100 meters high. He then turned around, put on an oxygen mask, and walked towards the basement.
……
“Lin Chen, I’m really surprised that you used such a precious opportunity to ask why I chose Song Shengsheng.”
“I’m going to die anyway. It’s more important to untangle the knot in my heart.”
“Don’t you understand?” Mr. Meijing sighed softly. “I chose Song Shengsheng because I know exactly what kind of talent is most attractive to you.”
“What you mean is, Song Shengsheng is just bait to lure us, and the fire in the cultural center is to retaliate against us?”
“How can you say it’s revenge? It’s more appropriate to say it’s a gift,” Mr. Meijing said sincerely.
“Because we arrested Yang Dianfeng and disrupted your live broadcast. Why didn’t you target us directly?”
“Lin Chen, my child, you’re so naïve.” Meijing shook his head helplessly. “Turn around and look at those people who are crying so sadly below. The heart-wrenching pain you have tasted, they will soon understand. What do you think they will think when they see the charred corpses of their loved ones and hear that their loved ones are the victims of revenge?”
Lin Chen asked disapprovingly, “Why should I care what they think?”
“Then let me tell you. Many of them must feel that if the police hadn’t fought against us, these people wouldn’t have died. It’s you who they will blame for killing their loved ones.”
Lin Chen nodded. “Well, when these people speak out to condemn the police, you can contribute to making this voice gradually become the mainstream of society. In the future, law enforcers will not dare speak out and will start doing things with their hands tied. Is this the result you want?”
“Indeed. In fact, you should know better than me how easy it is to manipulate the public’s psychology. People are ignorant and follow the crowd. With a little manipulation, the innocent victims who died in this fire can become brain-dead groupies. Many people will say that they wouldn’t have died if they hadn’t chased stars, so they deserve it…”
“I see. Although I think you’re a little naïve and flustered, after hearing what you said, are Song Shengsheng’s fans dead?”
“Don’t cheat. Isn’t this a second question? You have to step back.” Meijing pointed his finger to the ground behind Lin Chen.
……
Mu Wenhua was sitting in the central hall, unaware that a discussion had been started about her regarding the social evaluation after her death. In fact, everyone may have considered this already. Being trapped and burned to death because of chasing a star didn’t sound glorious.
However, Mr. Meijing probably wouldn’t have thought that what she was thinking about now was similar to what Consultant Lin, who wanted to save her life, was. There were many idiots in the world. If one had to listen to every idiot’s words and remember them, it was better to just die early.
In life, it was more important to love yourself and your loved ones. These were almost the heartfelt words of a mother and groupie who were about to be choked to death by smoke. She completely maintained a posture of crawling on the ground, looking at the photos of her daughter, husband, and her favorite, Mr. Song Shengsheng, in her phone album.
She hummed a very light tune, and then she heard the girl who was lying next to her humming too.
The temperature of the air gradually increased, and a clearly visible flame was ejected from the emergency exit. Although the fire hadn’t completely burned through the walls of the hall, it looked to be coming fast.
……
Lin Chen took another step back.
He didn’t have eyes behind his head, but he could still feel the crumbling feeling caused by the violent wind and the 100-meter drop. Those weren’t hallucinations but real pressure.
Xing Conglian’s extremely heavy gasping sound came from his headset. Although he didn’t know where the other party was, he could tell that Xing Conglian should have entered the deepest part of the fire just from his breathing. It should be dark there, extremely hot, and it would take all the strength in his body just to breathe. Xing Conglian’s mask should be covered with water vapor. When he wiped them away, he should be able to see those dark, green eyes like a pool of water.
“Of course you don’t have to die.” Mr. Meijing sat on the ground and looked at his watch. “Lin Chen, in fact, as long as you jump off this building to atone for your sins, I guarantee that most of them will be able to survive.”
“1 life for 3,000?” Lin Chen felt incredulous. “That’s too good of a deal. Since when did you start making bad deals?”
“It’s not a loss at all. The legendary Consultant Lin is still very valuable. In fact, you see, it’s the same to me whether you die or those people down there.”
“I see. If I jump as you say, it will tell many people in this world that evil can prevail over those chicken soup for the soul words. People will have to succumb to a stronger party.”
Mr. Meijing stroked his hands and began to applaud. “So, Lin Chen, you still have 10 minutes at most.” Mr. Meijing took out a pack of small cookies from his backpack, unwrapped it, and stuffed a piece into his mouth. “But this should be difficult for you. After all, your indecision killed Song Shengsheng. You obviously had an entire month to save him, but what were you doing at that time? Grabbing tickets? If you used a tough attitude to demand a meeting with Song Shengsheng, perhaps he would have mustered up the courage to tell you everything. Our plan wouldn’t succeed, and the people below you wouldn’t have to die…”
“I’m dying, so don’t lie to me. Song Shengsheng was missing a tooth. You installed a bug on him, and you used the lives of his fans to threaten him, so he wouldn’t tell me about it.” The wind on the top floor was suddenly strong. Lin Chen sat down as he spoke helplessly.
“You know about the dentures?” Mr. Meijing finally showed some surprise on his face.
“Yes, I just asked you why Song Shengsheng. In fact, there should be some reason it’s him, right?”
Mr. Meijing took out a thermos and unscrewed the lid. Gurgling tea flowing into a cup sounded. He breathed in the tea and had a smile of reminiscence on his face. “Song Shengsheng, when I first met him, I thought he was like an expensive large dog with bright fur. When I go out, the little girls who love him would point and scream. I really love him as my own child.”
Lin Chen asked patiently, “Then why destroy him?”
“When he went to Xiang Ye for the first time, I happened to be there that day. I was very distressed when I heard he was being abused by Li Jingtian over and over again. But as you know, Li Jingtian is the grandson of Mr. Li. We operate in Xinni and still need to rely on Lao Li for our business, so Xiang Ye persuaded Song Shengsheng to be patient. But Shengsheng disagreed. I have seen the injuries on his body. It was terrible. He was so miserable, but he actually still had the strength to slam on Xiang Ye’s desk. His entire body was full of fighting spirit, as if he were inflamed.”
“What happened later?”
“He was really disobedient, so we had no choice but to tie him to a chair. Xiang Ye opened his mouth and took pliers and pulled out his teeth…” Meijing said as he leisurely took a sip of tea. “You should really see the scene at that time. He bled profusely, and his voice was broken from screaming so much. We also spent a lot of effort to stop the bleeding and install the fake tooth. But in the end, the way he looked at us was still burning, and he didn’t give in at all. It was quite interesting.”
“Since he’s that kind of person, how did you get him to submit?”
“You know, it’s most interesting to break a hound’s leg and watch him lie in his kernel.” Mr. Meijing bit off a piece of cookie. “Actually, in the beginning, he kept making small movements behind our backs, thinking we wouldn’t know, but in fact, we really knew everything. One day, he was looking through Xiang Ye’s bedroom when I walked in and caught him.”
“You punish him?”
“It can’t be called punishment. After all, the next day happened to be his record signing event. Before the meeting, Xiang Ye took him to stand on a high place, looking at the signing event, and showed him a piece of news. The news of two girls at Fengchun University being involved in a car accident. One of them, Song Shengsheng, knew. She was one of his female fans who had a heart attack. He donated a lot of money to that fan, and she was successfully saved and has gone back to college. Because of his risky actions, we had to kill two people overnight. It was truly exhausting.”
It was hard for Lin Chen not to follow Mr. Meijing’s voice back to that moment ten years ago. Everything that Song Shengsheng experienced was crueler than he imagined.
He couldn’t live or die. It was probably nothing more than that.
“He cried.”
“Yes, he punched Xiang Ye and cried. It’s said that was the first time he shed tears. He cried terribly, like a virgin who was preparing to cut her own throat to protect her chastity.”
“But you didn’t let him die?”
“Yes, we told him that if he dares die, I promise to kill many, many more of his fans.” When Meijing said this, his eyes turned to the fire in the distance. The white smoke had turned blue, and everything looked like hell. “I always keep my word.”
……
Mu Wenhua was singing—specifically—the girls in the entire central hall were singing softly.
[There’s no eternal love in this world, and no one can live forever, so let loose. Be wanton, be free. Fuck it! Let him go!]
She didn’t know why, but everyone chose the same song. They all gathered together as the fire raged. The mothers were keeping the younger girls in a place further inside, away from the flames, but everyone knew that they couldn’t escape today, so they started singing.
That was Shengsheng’s favorite song. Although the song’s lyrics were explicit, it had a wonderful name: <I’ll Be With You Forever>.
I’ll Be With You Forever.
She didn’t know if she was hallucinating, but when she turned her head, she seemed to see Shengsheng standing on stage. His body seemed to be glowing.
He was saying, “Because I’m more handsome, it’s better for me to protect you~”
……
Traveling in the underground space was more difficult than he imagined. The backlog of smoke made searchlights useless. Xing Conglian was sweating like rain, and it was difficult to breathe. Perhaps it was because the underground space was too quiet that he could clearly hear the conversation at an altitude of 100 meters.
He could hear the calm and joyful voice of Meijing, and he could hear the painful trembling in Lin Chen’s voice when he asked the last question.
But now, he had to drive those pictures out of his mind and listen carefully to the instructions in the headset.
“Captain, Captain Li, there should be a staircase 5 meters in front of you. Walk down the stairs and you will be able to see the central control room.”
“Copy that.”
“The girl in the central hall said that the fire has broken through the walls and the smoke is getting heavier. They may not be able to hang on for much longer.”
“I checked the information on the cultural center. The central control room adopts the RM5 electronic door. The back door should be automatically opened when the power is off to ensure the safety of the personnel. If it’s not opened, I’m afraid that the server has failed, so the access card won’t work, and you need to enter the code directly.”
“You must pay attention to safety, Captain. No one will give me my allowance if you die.”
……
Lin Chen pressed the headset. When he heard the last words of Wang Chao, he felt relieved.
The child raised by Xing Conglian was truly fearless.
It was almost time. He patted the dust off his clothes and stood up from the ground.
Seeing him get up, Mr. Meijing’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Oh, have they already reached the electronic door?”
Lin Chen shook his head. “Not yet. So you also tampered with the electronic door?”
Meijing smiled. “Is this the last question?”
Lin Chen shook his head but still took a step back. The strong wind blew against him fiercely as he suddenly sneered. “My last question is, have you ever heard this very famous saying?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Villains die because they talk too much.”
Mr. Meijing laughed. He covered his mouth to prevent the cookie crumbs from spraying out indecently. “What does that mean?”
Lin Chen didn’t hesitate to take out the gun. He pulled the safety, loaded the gun, and pointed it at the middle-aged man on the ground. “After talking so much, you’re actually just going in circles. You keep leading the topic to the argument that I’m the same as Song Shengsheng. Because we provoked you, that’s why you were forced to kill.”
“That’s a fact.”
“It’s not a fact. It’s a typical technique using motive A to cover up motive B. It boils down to the fact that your motive was never to take revenge on us. You just wanted to kill Song Shengsheng’s fans. You just said you knew about me grabbing tickets. It means you have been monitoring the voting system of the fan meeting, and the ticket grabbing rules at that time were very interesting. It shows that every fan in the venue is carefully selected. You deliberately selected the most veteran fans of Song Shengsheng. There must be a reason. Song Shengsheng gradually realized your actions and chose to warn us by committing suicide. The timing of his death couldn’t have been more appropriate. Xiang Ye was arrested, and we’re able to get here in time because of him.”
Meijing just smiled and shook his head speechlessly.
“Song Shengsheng is the toughest person I’ve ever seen in my life. Since you put that tooth on him, I’m afraid he hasn’t said anything for many years. Probably even you haven’t thought about it, but dead people do speak.”
“Lin Chen, I’m the one who has known Song Shengsheng for many years. Not you. Why do you think he didn’t want to meet you? Because he didn’t dare. His bones have been broken, and even his tendons were pulled out one by one. You don’t know how much he wants to return to the stage. Even if he had to kneel and crawl, he would. So he didn’t want to die at all. If he was as smart as you said, he would have known what we wanted to do, and he would have committed suicide. Why did it have to be today?”
“Yes, I also want to know why it must be today.”
The sky was clear, and the sun was blazing. Lin Chen glanced at the bright universe as he asked this solemnly.
Song Shengsheng, what else is there that you want to say but I haven’t heard?
……
In the underground space, in front of the sturdy electronic door, a tone indicating that the password had failed kept ringing.
Xing Conglian turned his head, and behind him was a flood of hot, black smoke, but he couldn’t see any flames. Beside him, the firefighter who descended into the fire with him was repeatedly trying to open the door with the access card.
But fail, fail, still fail…
Finally, Li Chongyuan threw away the access card and took out the tools from his toolbox that he was carrying with him and prepared to pry off the electronic control board directly.
“Wang Chao, is there any other way? The door can’t be opened. Is it possible to pick the lock? Or hack it?”
“Fuck me, Captain. It stands to reason that this kind of electronic door will automatically open after it’s powered off, and you don’t even need a password. Tell me, is the mode of the electronic display board fail safe or fail security?”
Xing Conglian looked at it immediately. “Fail security.”
Wang Chao roared. “What idiot put the door in fail security mode. Does he think the door to the central control room is a vault? Captain, tell Captain Li not to try to break the door. In fail security mode, the security level is the highest. If you break the door forcibly, it will automatically lock. I promise you, you won’t be able to open it again in a short time!”
Li Chongyuan stopped immediately. The voice in his headset was still talking, but Xing Conglian suddenly felt that the surroundings were very quiet, so quiet that he could only hear Lin Chen’s slow breathing.
“Lin Chen, we need a password,” he said to him.
……
Lin Chen raised his gun and took a step forward.
Probably discovering the change in his face, the middle-aged man sitting on the ground said, “The door isn’t easy to open, right? Well, leave me a number, and after you commit suicide, I’ll tell them the password. Don’t worry, I always keep my word.”
“You’ve changed the code on the electronic door?” he asked.
“Bingo. So, do you want to save those people or not?”
Lin Chen found this quite comical. “I just said, Mr. Meijing, villains often die because they talk too much. In fact, this is also a psychological problem. Villains like you are proud, arrogant, and think they are always in control of the overall situation, so when it comes to the final moment of victory, you can’t help but brag. It’s always so easy to talk so much shit. If you talk too much, you’ll lose. I suggest you shut up now. This was my sincere advice to Li Jingtian. Don’t give me any chances to guess the password.”
“Even if you want to guess, you’ll still have to know my biographical information, but you don’t even know who I am…” Meijing whispered softly.
Looking at Mr. Meijing’s arrogant and cunning smile, Lin Chen said calmly, “I don’t need to know who you are. You’ve already said so much to me just now. I know enough.”
“Really?”
“You’re cynical and have obvious antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders. You regard human lives as nothing and think all beings are evil. You look down on all ordinary people and treat human life as a joke. You always feel like this is some kind of game set up by you, and everyone is just a pawn in your hand. You ridiculed the fans’ stupid love for Song Shengsheng. Of course, you also think Song Shengsheng is stupid, and you look down on him very, very much.”
“He’s really a dog.”
“As I said just now, your biggest problem is that you think Song Shengsheng is a plaything under your control. I think it’s his hypocrisy and obedience to you that gave you this impression. Every day, he’s under your control, but he’s full of fighting spirit. This battle will not end until he reaches the end of his life, and since he chose death, it means that he has ushered in the final victory with his death.”
“I’m going to blush with you praising Song Shengsheng so much.”
“So, did you really set that password?” Lin Chen sneered as he took another step forward.
After he asked that question, he saw an obvious crack in the originally decent smile on Mr. Meijing’s face.
“No need to answer. Your expression has already told me the answer.” He gently pressed his fingers on his lips and made a quiet gesture. “People like you like to play those cruel human games the most. Let Song Shengsheng know that his resistance killed his fans or force me to commit suicide to save others. You will always have the greatest malice towards the world, but you like to play with meaningless and symbolic things the most. If you want to set up a password for a door that will never be opened and kill those fans who love Song Shengsheng, pray tell, who would you use to come up with it?”
After Lin Chen finished speaking, he took another step forward. He was getting closer to the malicious manifestation on the ground. “Your expression tells me that that person is Song Shengsheng. You wouldn’t be stupid to ask Song Shengsheng casually what number he likes so you can use it to kill the fans that love him the most.” Lin Chen didn’t give Meijing a chance to speak, because he finally knew why Song Shengsheng chose to die today. “Yesterday, he came here for rehearsal. Of course, he didn’t know your plans, but he’s a smart person. When he came here, he finally connected the dots. He knew what you were going to do. You were going to kill people—many, many people—so he had to use his own death to stop all this. He knew the password. He knew how evil you were and knew that you might not necessarily use the string of numbers he provided when you asked him that day. But if he committed suicide, you were more likely to use the number he was thinking of. After all, a password set by a living person will always have the possibility of being cracked, but a password thought up by a dead person wouldn’t, right?”
Mr. Meijing’s face turned ashen. Finally, there was no trace of humility or gentleness left on his face. He laughed cruelly. It was as if an ancient evil had been resurrected, mouthful of blood and devouring goodwill wherever he went.
Lin Chen knew he had guessed right. “Are you wondering what on earth you overlooked that allowed Song Shengsheng to pass on the password? But he obviously didn’t use words. You haven’t thought about it, have you? That old dog that you despise can stab you in the back even after death.”
Meijing grinned. “No, you guessed wrong. It’s a password I set up. The old dog Song Shengsheng doesn’t know anything at all.”
“No, that’s the number he wanted.”
The scorching sun was dazzling as the strong breeze blew through the sky.
Lin Chen spoke slowly. “Song Shengsheng entered showbiz too early. He hasn’t read too many books. If he set the password and wanted to pass it on, it wouldn’t be too complicated, but only those who love him can guess it. You should know that Song Shengsheng likes to paint the symbol & very much, but I didn’t see that symbol in the bathtub where he died. I’ve been thinking, why didn’t a person like him, who was full of faith, draw that symbol?”
“Why?”
“Because Song Shengsheng once said at a concert, if I die one day, please sing a song for me. It was a song full of explicit words, but the name was unexpectedly touching. This song comes from his beloved fairy tale, and only a veteran fan will know that in the lyrics of that song, there’s a decorative & after each line, except for one. That line of the lyrics is as long as a foot wrap, but because of a typesetting error, there was an & missing at the end.”
“So the password he set was in that line of the lyrics.”
Lin Chen didn’t know how the man who had his teeth pulled out, was blackmailed, and lived in the shadows of a hanging sword all day did all this. He didn’t even know what Song Shengsheng relied on to choose to commit suicide before taking the stage and realizing his wish.
But Song Shengsheng, who was rebellious, indulgent, and should have had a life like fire—was full of fighting spirit, and he never gave up.
Lin Chen once asked himself whether suffering and pain would make a soul humble, and he thought that Song Shengsheng had given him the answer.
He seemed to see the 18-year-old Song Shengsheng smiling heartily as he said to him, “Hey. I’m so proud. How can I bow my head to a shit like fate? I will never bow to fate.”
He took the last step and pressed the muzzle of his gun firmly between the middle-aged man’s brows. “Checkmate.”
……
The water curtain was overwhelming.
Mu Wenhua was helped out of the fire. Although she had been waiting inside for a long time, and her body was hot, the moment she walked into the sun, she discovered for the first time how warm the sun could be.
Separated from countless people, she saw the man she loved the most in her life rushing towards her with her daughter in his arms. Then she hugged her lover tightly with unprecedented strength.
She kissed her daughter’s soft cheek and wiped away the tears on her cheek with her smokey fingers.
……
There were people everywhere in the square.
Although Wang Chao had sent a text in advance to remind everyone to lay low, stay away from the fire source as much as possible, and pay attention to the high-temperature water vapors before the power was turned on, some people who were too close to the fire got burned by the heat, though it was just a minor injury that could be easily treated. Anyway, as long as people were still alive, there was hope.
At least this was what Comrade Xiao Wang thought.
Many long-legged nurses got out of the ambulances that started to arrive one after another, and they were doing simple bandages for the wounded.
He was finally able to sit comfortably in the police car with the air conditioning blowing. He looked at his laptop, guessing his boss’ roar would soon come out of the headset, telling him to go do this and that. In case his boss asked him to repair the server, repair the network, or something else, he felt he had to charge a high price. In short, he would go to Battle.net and buy the Digital Collector’s Edition of Overwatch.
……
Lin Chen didn’t know how he got down the stairs.
There was a scattered corpse on the ground. Just now, Meijing had jumped down from the high-rise building. He didn’t even have time to pull the trigger when the other party chose death.
It turned out that 1 was exchanged for 3,000, but the person who committed suicide by jumping off the building in the end became Mr. Meijing.
He walked around the body of the man on the ground and pushed away all the police officers who tried to help him.
Maybe it was because he had been in the sun for too long, but he only felt a splitting headache and severe pain in his eardrums, as if someone were constantly talking in his ear. For a while, it was Song Shengsheng singing, and for a while, it was Xing Conglian’s last “Okay”. The beeping sound of the electronic door failing to unlock kept ringing in his ears, which was incessant and desperate.
He felt that he could no longer tell the chronological order of things. Pictures all became blurred, but he clearly remembered the last scene before Meijing jumped off the building in his mind.
The gentle middle-aged man got up in front of the muzzle, moved his lips, and said to him with a smile, “Please give my regards to Captain Xing.”
After saying these words, Meijing quickly ran to the edge of the rooftop and gracefully jumped down.
For some reason, after he tried to call Xing Conglian, he got no response. He felt the gun in his hand was so heavy that he could barely hold it. If the two of them were the target of Meijing’s revenge, Xing Conglian might also be in danger. With his gun in his hand, any shots fired in the fire would be extremely dangerous.
He ran towards the square, surrounded by people clinging to each other. Men and women were hugging and kissing, with happy smiles on their faces after escaping death. There was water sprinkling in the sky. The fire had gradually extinguished, but there was still the sound of sporadic beeping and glass cracking.
But he couldn’t find Wang Chao or Xing Conglian. There was no familiar face as far as he could see. He kept asking everyone where Xing Conglian was but got no response. Some people even asked him strangely, “Who is Xing Conglian and who are you?”
Yes. Who is Xing Conglian, and what’s his relationship with him?
He stepped into the fire and saw the silver-gray security door that had been cut wide open. It was empty behind the door; the person he was looking for wasn’t there.
He wanted to yell, but found that his throat was too tense to make any sound.
The ground was wet—extremely wet—and everything was falling apart. He occasionally passed by some firefighters who were rescuing people. Someone asked him where he was going and who he was looking for, but he couldn’t answer. A lot of voices sounded in his ears again, as if someone was singing in the square. It was the same song—Song Shengsheng’s song. The singing was like a bright light penetrating the night, dyeing the surrounding chaos with a bit of color.
Someone sang, “There’s no eternal love in this world.”
He walked to the basement. There was only the green light of the emergency exit on. The surroundings were dark, and water was dripping from the ceiling.
He gradually heard the sound of footsteps. It was a firefighter with heavy steps. He grabbed him and asked the question again, “Where’s Xing Conglian?”
The other party scratched his head, then took off his mask and said to him, “You’re looking for Captain Xing? He’s just downstairs.”
He let go of the man and ran downstairs. He opened every door in the underground, but he didn’t find the person he was looking for.
The singing in the square seemed to have passed through the layers of concrete, but it might also be his auditory hallucination.
And no one can live forever…
Someone was harmonizing the song, “And no one can live forever…”
He was about to push open the last iron door at the end of the corridor, and at this moment, someone patted him lightly on the shoulder.
He suddenly turned his head, drew his gun, and pressed it firmly against the man’s forehead.
Then, he saw a pair of green eyes, as if they were the clearest spring water in the forest, or a very light wind blowing across the corners of his eyes and brows.
The man looked ashen. His face was blackened and covered in soot, but with a smile in his eyes, he said to him, “It’s me. Don’t be afraid.”
At that moment, Lin Chen suddenly heard the countless voices pouring into his ears. Many people were clamoring, “So let loose. Be wanton, be free. Fuck it! Let him go!”
There’s no eternal love in this world, and no one can live forever, so let loose. Be wanton, be free. Fuck it! Let him go!
So let loose. Be wonton, be free. Fuck it! Let him go!
Lin Chen dropped the gun, grabbed the man by his hair, and pushed him hard against the wall, then kissed him heavily.
The author has something to say:
I was born in the sky, grew up in the scorching sun. I soar in the wind, but never gone.
My dears, please don’t cry for me.
—Song Shengsheng
Kinky Thoughts:
This marks the end of the fourth arc. So many things I wanted to express, but I held out until the end so there wouldn’t be any spoilers.
First, the importance of Oscar Wilde’s work in this arc. Two of his works were specifically mentioned: The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and The Rose. There’s plenty of symbolism of self-sacrifice embodied by Song Shengsheng throughout this arc, as you can see, which reflects the theme of these two stories.
In both The Happy Prince and The Nightingale and The Rose, you have characters who give up everything in a selfless deed to protect those they love. The prince strips off everything he has to give to the poor, which eventually leads to his death. Likewise, the Nightingale sacrifices herself for a red rose so the one she loves can be happy. Song Shengsheng is very similar in this aspect, as he sacrificed his life to protect his fans.
Speaking of Song Shengsheng, it’s quite ironic that his name [Shengsheng] means sound, but he does not actually speak once throughout this arc (except for events in the past that’s recorded). This was purposeful on the author’s part.
I admit I struggled to get through this arc. The subjects were quite heavy and not to my taste (I really can’t stand rape), but it also has one of my favorite chapters: Lin Chen’s showdown with Li Jingtian, and the overall question about Song Shengsheng kept me anticipating.
I’m quite sad that Song Shengsheng died, which I have personal gripes about. I feel that his death felt forced by the author to make it seem more dramatic and tragic than necessary.
On my first read when I was translating it, I thought everything was too convoluted (including Song Shengsheng’s suicide) to push the tragedy that he will not live. When I read over this arc again for a second time during the proofread, I changed my opinions on the matter.
There’s a reason why Oscar Wilde is so heavily referenced in this arc. Song Shengsheng embodies the two stories that I mentioned above. To many people, the actions of the Happy Prince and the Nightingale might seem stupid (and likewise Song Shengsheng’s). I certainly couldn’t comprehend why he could put up with all this for a decade and still find no way to tell the police what’s going on without having to resort to a suicide, especially after the showdown between Li Jingtian and Lin Chen. He must have witnessed it and know how capable Lin Chen is and the fact that Lin Chen wanted to see him desperately would give him a chance to spill everything.
At least this is what I thought during my first read, but then after analyzing the arc after my second read when proofing, I factored in a few things. First, Song Shengsheng’s age. He was scouted at 16 and became a mega star at 18. At such a young age, he probably didn’t have the education and life experience yet to deal with such complicated issues that he was facing. Hell, probably even as an adult one probably would find it tough to make a decision. You can see this in real life where child stars go down a dangerous path without proper guidance from a caring and wise adult. Unfortunately for Song Shengsheng, the person he trusted the most, his first agent who brought him to his debut, was an evil person and manipulated him.
Second, due to his naiveness given his age, when faced with threats that his fans were going to be killed if he gets out of line, he resolved to suffer in order to protect them. To Song Shengsheng, his fans represent the student who was looking for the rose, or the poor, dying people in the Happy Prince. Seeing that their threat is very real and afraid of even a single one of his fans dying if he goes to the police, he chooses to submit. I would say this was where I had the most problem with as you can never trust an evil person to actually keep their word. However, Song Shengsheng couldn’t take the risk because he loves his fans too much and he knows that if he tries to tell the police, many fans will die before things get solved, and there’s also a fear that they won’t believe him (no evidence).
As indicated by the author, Song Shengsheng is kind and I think this kindness is to the extreme to the point where his love for his fans supersedes everything else, including himself. While Li Jingtian and Meijing think this is stupid, I think it does match his personality. We know he grew up watching Oscar Wilde’s works and regards those stories as his inspiration. His favorite is The Nightingale and The Rose and so after thinking about it for a while, I did find that it does make some sense in why Song Shengsheng acted the way he did.
Personally, I think the author made Song Shengsheng’s character way too altruistic, but it is backed up by the things mentioned in the arc. On my first read, I was too annoyed to really analyze these factors because I just find Song Shengsheng’s action inexplicable, but after letting my emotions settle, I came to a more rational conclusion.
Anyway, I could probably go on and write an entire thesis on this, but I’ll spare you. At the end of the day it is a work of fiction so not everything has to be sensible as they are in real life. Perhaps I’m just being too critical (but common, I’m still pissed that Shengsheng died).
I would say the arc is good but I didn’t enjoy it because of the heavy subject in it and the fact that the one person you wish to have his redemption… kinda did but like died in the process… was just too painful (and I had to read this arc at least twice!).
However, don’t let my thoughts influence your opinions on the story. You’re welcome to join my Discord server to discuss or leave a comment.
At least we finally have movement in Lin Chen’s and Xing Conglian’s relationship.
Yongchuan, Xining Development Zone, Christine Cultural Center.
Just when Wang Chao was frustrated trying to connect to the wireless network, a middle-aged man with a gentle temperament had just pressed the elevator of the cultural center. The basement was filled with a gloomy coolness that was completely different from above ground. The middle-aged man smiled slightly at the surveillance camera, as if he were greeting the people in the surveillance room.
The elevator went straight to the negative second floor and stopped.
Carrying a backpack, the middle-aged man walked out of the elevator entrance and walked towards the entrance of the central auditorium.
The flow of people attending the fan meeting—ah, no—the memorial service was constantly crowding towards the cultural center’s central auditorium.
The central auditorium could accommodate nearly 5,000 people. In the public area at the entrance of the hall, there were many girls who hadn’t entered yet with particularly sad expressions. Some of them were squatting on the wall and crying, and some were gathered in small groups to comfort each other.
The middle-aged man passed between them. His backpack happened to scratch a pendant on one of the girl’s backpacks. The two became entangled, and the middle-aged man was forced to stop.
“I’m so sorry.” He apologized to the girl first.
The girl wanted to take off her backpack but was stopped.
“It’s okay. I’ll just do it myself.”
He asked the girl to turn her back, and he slightly unzipped the girl’s backpack, then undid the tangle and gently restored it to its original form.
Perhaps it was because the voice of the middle-aged man was clearer and more melodious than the violin music playing on the speakers, or perhaps it was his casual outfit that gave off a strong artistic temperament, but the girl suddenly really wanted to talk to the man in front of her, who looked like he could be her father’s age. But before she could speak, the middle-aged man bowed to her in advance, showed a modest and polite smile, then turned and left.
The girl reluctantly turned her head and thought, with some regret, that it was probably someone from the orchestra who was about to perform in the center.
……
At the entrance of the Christine Cultural Center.
Mu Wenhua hurriedly ran up the stairs. Her hair was a mess, but she didn’t have time to comb it. When she went to bed last night, her daughter gave her a sweet good night kiss. She fell into a deep sleep with a beautiful vision, but when she got up in the morning to make breakfast, it was as if lightning had struck her.
After broadcasting today’s weather, there was breaking news that was said in a serious and sad tone by the anchor.
When Mu Wenhua heard the news, she almost knocked over the pan on the gas. He committed suicide because of depression? How is this possible?
In the living room, her husband and her daughter were laughing at the dining table, but the laughter stopped quickly because of the news. She was incredibly happy that she managed to get tickets for that day. Her husband was also considerate and said he would take care of their daughter so she could rest assured and go to the fan meeting, but now, Shengsheng was dead. What was she going to see?
Mu Wenhua squatted on the kitchen floor in a daze. She didn’t cry at first, until the sound of footsteps and the gas being turned off came. Then she broke down.
A pair of wide palms touched her back. She was tightly hugged by her lover as she let her tears fall. She sobbed loudly.
She remembered that she cried for a long time. She had experienced the pain of being awakened just as her dreams were about to come true. She had experienced it many years ago. Now it seemed like she was back to that summer when she was 18 years old. The same cicadas and the same hot summer, but this time, the people who once scolded her changed and instead was now her lover.
Her husband said to her, “Let’s go. I’ll accompany you. No matter what, you still want to go, right?”
Mu Wenhua wiped away her tears and nodded vigorously.
They drove from Yongchuan Ave to the Xining Development Zone. The traffic was heavy along the way. The car radio announced the cancellation of the meeting and talked about depression for a while. Feeling uneasy, Mu Wenhua used her phone to log in to Be With You. She saw the discussion post at the top and replied resolutely: [Even if the meeting is canceled, I want to go.]
Later, she received a text message from the fan club confirming that the meeting would still be held as scheduled. There was a bitter sense of satisfaction in her heart. In any case, the wish she had failed to achieve during her summer vacation when she was 18 could only be fulfilled today.
Her husband sent her to the entrance of the cultural center and told her he would take their daughter to the bookstore nearby to play for a while. He asked her to rest assured and finally gave her a soothing kiss.
She quickly ran up the steps. Because she was too eager, she didn’t notice a person passing in front of her and found it too late to stop, so she slammed into him.
The other party took two steps back, supported her, and said softly, “Be careful.”
Only then did she realize that she had just bumped into a middle-aged man wearing gold-rimmed glasses. The middle-aged man was carrying a black backpack and had gentle eyes. Sad violin music was playing in the hall. She stood up straight and watched the middle-aged man walk away into the darkness in the distance, amidst the sounds of strings.
……
Heng Xiao was an ordinary secretary who worked for the general manager of the Christine Cultural Center. When he received a call from the police, he was still secretly chatting with his girlfriend on WeChat.
Before putting down the phone, his last reply was: [Don’t join the fun. The main hall can’t fit anyone else.]
He picked up the phone as the sound of the violin suddenly became passionate.
The person on the other end of the phone claimed to be a criminal police officer and had received a report that someone had installed a bomb at the cultural center. Although it may be a false alarm, for safety concerns, he still needed to understand the relevant situation at the center and required that the cultural center immediately start their emergency protocol. The plan was to start evacuating the crowd in an orderly manner.
When he first heard the news, Heng Xiao panicked, but he still couldn’t help but think this might be some kind of prank. There were lots of news stories about bomb claims that turned out to be false alarms. Perhaps this was one as well.
“I’ll call our general manager’s office.” He stood up and looked at the densely packed flow of people downstairs as he said this.
……
The middle-aged man carrying a backpack walked for a long time until he finally sat down slowly in the rest area at the end of the corridor. To his left was the last emergency exit on the entire floor. Compared to the scene in front of the hall, there wasn’t a person here.
He put down his backpack, took out a sandwich, and patiently ate it.
The auntie in charge of cleaning looked at the man eating his sandwich inexplicably as she dragged a mop towards his feet.
The middle-aged man moved his feet good-naturedly and took another bite of his sandwich, revealing the bright red ham inside.
The cleaning auntie asked, “Did you send your daughter to the concert?”
The middle-aged man laughed and showed a warm smile. “Yes.”
“But isn’t the singer dead?”
“My daughter likes him, so I can’t help it.” He stood up helplessly, took a last bite, and threw the sandwich wrapper into the trash can. Then he walked down the emergency exit passage.
……
A reminder that the train was about to arrive at Xining Square Station was broadcast in the subway train.
Lin Chen raised his head and glanced at the indicator light. They were two stops away from the Christine Cultural Center.
Just now, news came from Jiang Chao that most of the police force at Lake Ludi had been mobilized to deal with a series of accidents caused by spontaneously combusting vehicles in the tunnel under the lake. The leader of the squadron said that to transfer another squadron, there must be sufficient evidence to prove that there may be an attack. Otherwise, the random deployment of firefighting forces was detrimental to fire safety in other areas of the city. What if this was to lure the tiger out of the mountains*?
*(调虎离山) Idiom referring to tricks used to make the other party leave the original place in order for them to take advantage of the opportunity (AKA a diversion).
This was what the other party said.
Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian.
Xing Conglian had just finished his phone call with the general manager of the Yongchuan Christine Cultural Center. The general manager on the other line had similar sentiments. Of course, the bomb attack was just something he made up, but he couldn’t think of another reason that would make the other party relatively nervous without causing them to panic too much.
The manager had a relatively good attitude. He said in a cooperative tone, “Yes, I understand. I will report the traffic data you want immediately, but I really don’t know you. Do you have any way to prove your identity? Or can you ask any superiors in the development area to give me a call? I will quickly act if I receive a call from a superior.”
After he finished speaking, he hung up.
While looking at the floor plan of the cultural center, Xing Conglian couldn’t help but dial Jiang Chao’s number again.
“Can you contact the leaders of the Xining Development Zone? Ask them to call the manager of the cultural center and help me confirm my identity.”
“Lao Xing, Lao Xing, are you seriously using me as a secretary? I’m currently divided in 18 pieces right now. Do you know how many superiors have called me to ask if my brain is broken? If nothing happens in the end, I’m sure we’re not escaping this with just a warning. They might even force us to resign.”
“Where are you now?” Xing Conglian asked.
“Laozi just got on the subway, and I just notified all levels of the city, but the opinions of the superiors are unified. You have to have evidence. It’s not sufficient to speculate that the dark web will do a live death broadcast twice based on Song Shengsheng’s suicide. As long as you have sufficient evidence, the power of the city will be deployed by you!”
Lin Chen heard these words in his mind. Wang Chao had been searching for live content on the dark web non-stop since they stepped on the Jeep. Lin Chen glanced at the time. It was 15 minutes before the meeting started, which made it impossible to confirm and collect evidence within this short time.
“You once said that you’re very familiar with the source code of the app that Royal One uses. Have you compared that code to the live broadcast website?”
Lin Chen couldn’t help asking Wang Chao. Although he also knew well that it was most likely impossible for Wang Chao not to have done so, at this critical moment, he could only ask this.
“Of course I have compared A’Chen, and I even compared it with Yang Dianfeng’s foot-binding system. It shouldn’t be written by the same person.”
Xing Conglian hung up the phone and continued to look through the drawings before asking, “Consultant Lin, with your understanding of these people, how will they act this time?”
“Our last operation destroyed their stronghold, so it’s impossible for them to organize enough manpower in a short period of time, so this operation is more like revenge. If you’re not wrong in your judgment of that bug, then the power they possess can’t be underestimated. What we’re facing isn’t a small criminal organization, but more like a medium- or large-sized crime syndicate.”
“In other words, our opponent’s technological power may be above us, such as the ability to control cyber networks?” Xing Conglian asked.
“Captain, although it’s urgent now, I’m still very upset when you say that!”
Xing Conglian held down the tablet with two fingers and zoomed in on the drawing of the culture center. “When you were looking for evidence in the Li Jingtian case, did you look at the management system of the Christine Cultural Center?”
Wang Chao took a sharp inhale. “I seem to have seen it once or twice!”
“Holy shit, Captain!” The teenager wanted to hack into the network system of the cultural center while talking, but for some unknown reason, he couldn’t open the homepage of the cultural center’s website.
“I want to get off this train. I want to get off!” Wang Chao smacked his laptop out of irritability and almost dropped it.
“What’s wrong?” Xing Conglian asked.
“I can’t connect to the cultural center’s intranet anymore.”
“The firewall is too great?”
“No, no…” Wang Chao said in extreme panic, “There’s only one possibility for this situation…”
“What?”
“Someone manually disconnected the network, either by cutting the optical cable or destroying the telecommunication distribution box.”
……
In fact, it wasn’t Wang Chao who first discovered there was a problem with the cultural center’s network, but Heng Xiao, the secretary of the general manager’s office. He found that the last message on WeChat he wanted to send to his girlfriend failed to deliver.
The sound of many employees desperately clicking the mouse immediately sounded in the office and whispering gradually followed.
Mr. General Manager rushed out of the office and said to him, “Notify all the staff to take up their posts at once and prepare for emergency protocol. We need to start evacuating the audience.”
Heng Xiao looked at his boss and was stunned. “Did you say, evacuate?”
Mr. General Manager glanced around the office and asked, “What’s the matter? Why are you just standing there blankly? Do you not have ears?”
“Manager, our network is disconnected…” Heng Xiao said timidly.
“What’s the use of telling me our network is down?” After the manager finished speaking, he suddenly thought of something, and his face turned pale. He quickly took out his phone and called the police officer back just now.
“Mr. Police Officer, our network is down, and we can’t get traffic data for the time being. I’m going to the surveillance room now.” The manager rushed out of the office while speaking. The moment he ran out the door, he didn’t forget to yell at his subordinates. “Get to work! We have people to save!”
The violin music in the hall was about to reach its climax, giving an ominous feeling of a turbulent sea rolling in.
……
Mu Wenhua finally squeezed into the main auditorium and found her seat.
There were three floors in the performance hall. It was said that only half the floor was open to the fan meeting, but now, Mu Wenhua saw that even the corner of the third floor was filled.
She put down her bag and sent her husband a text that she had arrived safely, then she opened her bag where she kept an old CD that she planned to get Song Shengsheng’s autograph.
At this moment, a broadcast sounded. “Due to circuit failure and other reasons, the Christine Cultural Center is about to close. Please find the nearest emergency exit and leave the venue in an orderly manner.”
Mu Wenhua couldn’t help clenching her purse strap tightly. She suddenly thought of her daughter.
……
Lin Chen followed Xing Conglian and Wang Chao and rushed out of the subway entrance. The towering Christine Cultural Center appeared in view.
The people from the Xining Development Zone police station had arrived. The captain was giving orders to his team. When he saw Xing Conglian, the sweaty police captain hurriedly said, “Lao Jiang has already told us the situation. We came as soon as we received the news. Now the first step is to evacuate the crowd, right?”
Before his voice fell, there seemed to be a muffled sound from inside the cultural center not far away.
People in the venue had already followed the instructions of the staff and started to evacuate one after another, with a steady flow of people rushing out. However, the sudden noise caused them to settle on the spot and look back.
Following the sight of those people, facing the dazzling sun, Lin Chen looked in the direction of the cultural center. If he heard right, it was a dull sound just now, which sounded like a small explosive device.
They didn’t have time to breathe and ran against the flow of people to the top of the steps.
Xing Conglian’s phone rang again, as if with some kind of reminder. Lin Chen had never felt that running nonstop could be so exhausting.
As soon as they rushed into the hall, the deafening sound of the alarm bells ringing echoed. He couldn’t see any fire, but the bell slamming into the eardrums was enough to make their vision dazed. There were terrified faces and crazy screams. A girl with long hair was throwing up while a boy’s gray sneaker lay on the floor. Everything was like a palette that kept stirring, making Lin Chen so dizzy that he had to stop and gasp for breath.
“What’s the situation inside?” Xing Conglian grabbed a boy who didn’t look too flustered and asked.
Perhaps it was because his extraordinary calmness was contagious that the boy followed his instructions and replied clearly, “As soon as the staff started to evacuate us, a trash can exploded on the second floor. I heard people say that there’s a fire somewhere inside!”
The slight sound of the violin came from the building. The strings trembled and the music was high, as if flames were spewing out.
The police officers of Xining police station rushed into the hall against the flow of people. Lin Chen was about to follow but was pulled by Xing Conglian. “Where do you think that Mr. Meijing will be?”
“It’s definitely not in this cultural center.” Lin Chen stood up straight and quickly understood the meaning of Xing Conglian’s words. His heart suddenly became clear. “If I was deliberately trying to create a tragedy, I would definitely not be far from it. I would watch the turmoil happen with my own eyes.” He looked around. The Christine Cultural Center was surrounded by construction sites, and there were only three completed buildings nearby. Then, from the building with the best view, someone might be looking at the chaos with a gratified smile.
“Wang Chao, do me a favor and calculate which of the three buildings has the best view here.”
The teenager’s gifted space imagination was once again exerted to the extreme. He looked at the three high-rise buildings around him, then pointed to one of them and said, “That one.”
While they were talking, water suddenly poured down from the ceiling. Many people screamed again when they were sprayed by the cold water. Lin Chen looked up and found that the automatic sprinkler at the cultural center was still working, but there was no fire in the lobby of the first floor. The firefighting system in place at the Christine Cultural Center was top-notch. However, he suddenly remembered that the network had just been disconnected, and he could only become more worried.
Whether it was the fire-fighting system or a building intelligence control system, these weren’t his areas of expertise.
“I’m going there.” He pointed to the high-rise building outside and said to Xing Conglian decisively.
“Lin Chen!” Just as he turned around, Xing Conglian called out to him.
Lin Chen turned around suddenly, and an explosion sounded. The violin abruptly stopped as the water splashing from the ceiling reached its end. Lin Chen was shocked to find the fire-proof rolling gate that was originally used to separate the large space beginning to lower slowly.
The crowd started screaming again.
Everyone frantically wanted to run out before the rolling gate descended, but at that moment, Lin Chen found that the faces of everyone around him had disappeared, and he could only see Xing Conglian.
Even though the crowd was pushing like waves hitting the shore, Xing Conglian still stood firm, like an unwavering rock.
Lin Chen watched him take something from his waist and throw it hard. He stretched out his hand to catch it. When he touched it, it felt cold. He lowered his head only to find that Xing Conglian had thrown him a gun.
When he looked up again, the rolling gate fell. The cold and ruthless silver-gray separated them.
The screams around him were still the same, but he could no longer see Xing Conglian.
What he asked was, if their hypothesis was true, what was the real reason Song Shengsheng chose to commit suicide a few hours before the fan meeting started?
He couldn’t continue to bear it and wanted to get rid of Xiang Ye’s control and use his death to expose these shady things?
The more he learned about Song Shengsheng’s experience, the more Lin Chen believed that he would not easily choose to die.
Although he and Xing Conglian had no evidence in their speculation on many past details of the case, such as the tooth or the reason why Song Shengsheng was unable to speak, it was even more likely that their reasoning was fundamentally untenable. There was no bug in that tooth, and no one threatened the lives of Song Shengsheng’s fans. Song Shengsheng just didn’t want to live anymore, and he died of world weariness.
But what if they were lucky enough to guess it correctly?
Song Shengsheng, who lived under the shadow of Li Jingtian, didn’t commit suicide, nor did he do it despite all the grievances he suffered and went to prison. He was monitored every day and didn’t choose to commit suicide on any of the days he was being monitored. Then why did he commit suicide nine years later?
Why was it on the early morning of June 1st?
Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian. “Apart from Xiang Ye threatening Song Shengsheng with the lives of fans or some other person so he couldn’t seek help from the police, is there any other reason he couldn’t go to the police?”
“I can’t think of any other reason,” Xing Conglian said bluntly.
Lin Chen thought that if even Xing Conglian couldn’t figure it out, then the people behind the scenes most likely couldn’t either.
Lin Chen said, “According to what you said, he lived to protect those whose lives might be threatened. Then he chose to commit suicide. Did he give up protecting those people? Are we ignoring the most fundamental problem?” There was a very terrifying speculation in his heart. Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian and continued to ask, “If he’s not dead, what will happen next?”
“What will happen?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing. Everything is the same as arranged before. Later, his fan meeting will be held, and he will return to the stage to meet with people who have insisted on loving him for many years…” Xing Conglian suddenly paused as if he thought of something.
Lin Chen nodded and continued, “Song Shengsheng didn’t hesitate to cut his throat. It happened to be in the early morning hours before the fan meeting. It was neither too early nor too late, so Xiang Ye had to cancel the meeting at the last minute. Song Shengsheng is strong. He survived to protect certain people. Then, I think he chose death to protect those people. If my analysis is correct, his death is most likely to prevent something terrible. The fan meeting was to be held on June 1st. That’s to say, a terrible thing will happen at the fan meeting, and he could only use his death to stop it.”
Lin Chen suddenly had a realization. “Song Shengsheng won’t suddenly give up on his beliefs. He chose to commit suicide, which meant that the chips that were threatening him with had been upgraded. Please tell me, what does this mean?”
Xing Conglian replied, “People will die at Song Shengsheng’s fan meeting. Therefore, after he knew this, he could only prevent the worst from happening by committing suicide.”
This was simply a fantasy hypothesis. However, the analysis that was often regarded as fantasy was truth. Even if Lin Chen didn’t want to think about it, he still quickly captured another possibility—Xiang Ye didn’t want to make Song Shengsheng popular again because he wanted to use Song Shengsheng to make money.
Lin Chen turned around, pushed open the door of the autopsy room, and rushed in.
Just as Song Shengsheng’s body was about to be put in the freezer, he grabbed the medical examiner and shouted, “Wait!”
The oncoming cold air chilled him. Song Shengsheng’s eyelashes drooped, and his face was serene. There was no trace of despair, grief, or unwillingness in his death. He sat in the bathtub, looked up at the vast starry sky outside the window, and didn’t hesitate to slit his throat.
It happened in the early morning hours before the fan meeting. It was neither too early nor too late, so Xiang Ye had to cancel the fan meeting at the last minute.
This wasn’t due to depression, world-weariness, or a last-resort resistance. This was the most sober choice, the most precise calculation, and the most magnanimous death.
Because he only had this path and no other options.
Lin Chen wanted to touch the terrible wound on Song Shengsheng’s neck but was stopped by the medical examiner. “What are you doing?”
Song Shengsheng had done so many things with his death that he must have also used it to point out the real culprit.
Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian and asked in an extremely calm tone, “Suicide, mass murder. What does that remind you of?”
Xing Conglian frowned and pondered, then suddenly opened his eyes wide and stared at him. “The dark web live broadcast?”
After Xing Conglian finished speaking, they both rushed out the door at the same time.
Xing Conglian ran down to the first floor and shouted in the hall of the police station. “Wang Chao! Wang Chao!”
He shouted so loudly that everyone around him turned their heads and looked at him. Finally, the teenager’s depressed voice came, “Here, Captain.”
Wang Chao’s voice floated out from some random office.
“Get out and go to the parking lot, now!”
Xing Conglian was running towards the parking lot outside while he was speaking. Lin Chen could understand his anxiety, but he couldn’t understand why his first reaction was to go to the car under such circumstances. But he still trusted Xing Conglian’s determination and followed him out.
12:30.
Under the scorching sun, the interior of the Jeep was so hot it was difficult to breathe. Xing Conglian didn’t even hesitate to start the engine. When he turned the car around and returned to the entrance of the police station, he happened to catch Wang Chao, who was rushing out.
Wang Chao climbed into the car panting, and before he could close the door, Xing Conglian had already stepped on the gas and driven out.
“What the hell, Captain…”
“Shut up and listen to me,” Xing Conglian interrupted. “We now suspect that the reason Xiang Ye planned Song Shengsheng’s fan meeting is to carry out a new round of live death broadcasts. First, tell me the latest news of Song Shengsheng’s fan meeting progress.”
Wang Chao was so shocked that it looked like his body would explode. He grabbed the back of his seat and asked, “Captain, this is a motherfucking god unfolding*. Why is Xiang Ye planning a live death broadcast? This is impossible. He took the initiative to cancel the fan meeting!”
*Term used to describe when there’s a huge leap in the plot that develops in an extremely fast direction.
“He wants to cover it up,” Xing Conglian said coldly. “Just check on whatever I ask you to check, and cut the crap.”
Lin Chen suddenly came to his senses. He thought of Mr. Meijing, who had disappeared without a trace. From the beginning, Xiang Ye was just an illusion to attract their attention. Because he canceled the fan meeting on his own initiative, it was difficult for them to realize the problems behind it. Xiang Ye also actively cooperated with the police investigation, and he was already detained. It was easy for them to relax their vigilance due to being tired of investigating the case.
But, fundamentally speaking, if this was a live death broadcast, then Xiang Ye couldn’t do it alone. Including Mr. Meijing, who was still at large, anyone else could appear at any time.
But this time, where did Xiang Ye find so many brainwashed students?
Wang Chao quickly began tapping the keyboard, and after a while, his hands suddenly stopped.
“Captain, it seems that Song Shengsheng’s fan meeting was never canceled.”
“Finish speaking in one breath,” Xing Conglian said coldly.
“Song Shengsheng’s website, Baidu forums, and individual websites have all collectively issued a new announcement.”
Wang Chao quickly dragged the mouse and handed the laptop over. “This is a joint statement issued by 7 major fan websites.”
Lin Chen turned his head and quickly glanced at the content of the statement.
The joint statement of the 7 major fan websites stated that even though Xiang Ye and the Yansheng Performing Arts Group had canceled the meeting, the 7 fan websites had discussed with Yansheng Performing Arts after collecting fans’ opinions and decided to temporarily change the fan meeting into a memorial service and would hold it as usual.
The statement also said that although Shengsheng committed suicide due to depression, it was his wish to return to the stage. Even when he was suffering from depression, he wanted to come back and see them again. So, although Shengsheng had fallen before the concert, the fans couldn’t. Besides, many girls flew from other provinces and even abroad, and there were even more fans who didn’t manage to get a ticket, camping outside the performing arts center early. Whether it was for Shengsheng or these girls, the meeting had to continue. This was for Shengsheng and the wish of everyone who loved him.
In order to realize everyone’s wishes, the 7 major fan websites discussed it with the person in charge of the Cultural Center and the Yansheng Performing Arts Group and made a new decision. As long as all fans abided by the order, they would arrange for as many people as possible to enter the venue.
Lin Chen couldn’t help but sneer. This seemed to be the result of a joint discussion between fans, but it was most likely Xiang Ye’s will. Xiang Ye was Song Shengsheng’s first agent, so naturally he had all the publicity resources related to Song Shengsheng, which of course included the relevant account numbers of the initial high-level managers of all of Song Shengsheng’s fan sites.
He didn’t need to call on Song Shengsheng’s fans through mass media platforms. As long as he controlled the high-level accounts of influential fans, he could, of course, control most of Song Shengsheng’s fans.
Xiang Ye had no intention of giving up the plan from the start.
Just as Lin Chen was thinking, Xing Conglian had already driven them to the subway station.
He quickly stopped the car and said to Wang Chao, “Take all your things and get three sets of wireless headsets out.”
Wang Chao hurriedly opened his backpack. “Captain, where are we going now?’
“The subway.”
Wang Chao shook out three miniature headsets from the pile of scraps in his backpack, spread out his palm, and handed it to them. “Why?”
“There’s a traffic jam in the Lake Ludi Tunnel.” Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian and connected all the details again.
The Yongchuan Christine Cultural Center was located in the Xining Development Zone, surrounded by water on all sides. It was a huge island in the inner lake. Except for the tunnel at the bottom of Lake Ludi, there was only one access channel to Yongchuan Ave, and Yongchuan Ave was the main road of Yongchuan that was always jammed day and night.
Xiang Ye’s choice of the Christine Cultural Center was premeditated. Even the current traffic jam in the Lake Ludi Tunnel was probably Xiang Ye’s handiwork. Song Shengsheng used his own death to make things clear, but they didn’t think about it earlier.
Xing Conglian sensed his anxiety. He stretched out his hand and pressed his neck, then leaned in front of him and said slowly, “We’ll take care of this matter together. Trust me. Believe in yourself and also believe in Song Shengsheng.”
Lin Chen suddenly came back to his senses. “Okay,” he said.
In fact, he didn’t know where Xing Conglian’s transcendent confidence came from when he told him this. On a normal day, Xing Conglian would walk and gossip with him with squinted eyes, but deep down in his heart, he knew very well that Xing Conglian wasn’t an ordinary police officer who liked to drink beer and eat peanuts.
After learning that Xiang Ye might attack the cultural center, Xing Conglian’s first reaction wasn’t to stop and investigate the problem first, but to go there; after learning that the fan meeting would continue on a larger scale, Xing Conglian didn’t waste time investigating Xiang Ye’s motives, gathering related evidence, or calling his superiors to report the situation, and instead called Jiang Chao first.
As Xing Conglian was running, Lin Chen could hear his breath through the headset, which wasn’t disturbed at all.
They descended into the subway station through the turnstiles, and the long wind howled from the far end of the tunnel.
After giving a brief overview of the situation, bright train lights soon appeared from the distance of the tunnel.
“Yes, mobilize the police and rush to the Christine Cultural Center. Abandon the use of police cars and take the subway. At the same time, notify fire and medical staff that there’s a traffic jam in the Lake Lidu Tunnel and be sure to take Yongchuan Ave. Please cooperate with the traffic police department to divert traffic and set out as soon as possible. The sooner, the better.”
He didn’t know what Jiang Chao said on the other end, but it was probably along the lines of “Lao Xing, won’t this create a big fuss without clearly investigating?” or “If nothing happens, we have to take responsibility.” These words would be what anyone would say in front of a conspiracy theorist who lacked evidence. Xing Conglian aggravated his tone and said mercilessly, “Shut your mouth. Now, we are worried about the lives of thousands of people at the cultural center. This is a great responsibility that we can’t afford, so tell your boss and your boss’ boss exactly this.”
The subway train door opened, and they stepped into the carriage and sat down side by side.
Lin Chen glanced at the road map. Their location was 6 stops away from the Christine Cultural Center, which would take them about 15-20 minutes.
“Wang Chao,” Xing Conglian shouted.
“Yes!”
“Give me the floor plan of the Christine Cultural Center.” At this moment, even the 18-year-old Wang Chao showed extraordinary calmness. He took out his spare tablet and handed it to Xing Conglian and added, “The internet speed on the subway is too poor, so it will take a while.”
Soon, a floor plan of the original construction of the Christine Cultural Center slowly unfolded. The picture was slightly stuck when it was rolling out. Taking this opportunity, Xing Conglian took the tablet and said, “Before calling the cultural center to evacuate the crowd, we must first come up with a plan. Otherwise, the crowd will panic, and a stampede could easily occur.”
Lin Chen realized again that a similar situation had happened before.
Perhaps the Ansheng International Shopping Mall incident itself was a rehearsal at that time. Xiang Ye planned the accident to calculate the reaction time of the relevant police forces. If this speculation was true, then he was afraid they would encounter a more detailed plan this time.
And when they began to evacuate the masses, it would alert Xiang Ye. This was why Xing Conglian didn’t call the cultural center first, but it was simply impossible to evacuate everyone quietly.
“Wang Chao.” Lin Chen said to the teenager, “First, adjust the surveillance cameras so we can grasp the flow of people inside and outside the cultural center.”
The teenager said with pain, “I tried just now, but the internet on the subway is really bad, so I can’t tap into the surveillance.”
Kinky Translations 