Yin Chen raised his head, his face beneath the baseball cap showing an impatient expression. Without further hesitation, he scooped You Mingxu up from the ground, carrying her horizontally in his arms, and walked toward another car parked nearby.

You Mingxu felt as if all the strength had been drained from her body. She could barely keep her eyes open, managing only to open them to a slit, seeing the dark sky in the background, the street lights flashing by, and Yin Chen’s strong jawline.

“What do you want to do?” Her voice was extremely weak.

“I want to take you home,” Yin Chen said hoarsely.

The woman I loved died twenty years ago.

The only light I ever encountered in life was snuffed out.

Since then, I’ve hated evil, yet lived within evil.

Now, even the faith I’ve held for more than ten years has been defeated completely. We’ve been proven failures, proven wrong. Even my most respected mentor will spend the rest of her life in prison.

In this vast world, only I remain.

I desperately want to return to a place. A place as warm as home, where no one beats me, no one despises me, and no one fears me.

But such a place no longer exists in this world.

Then, You Mingxu, on a certain dark, rainy, and incessantly noisy night. I suddenly thought of you.

I remembered that there was still someone in this world with her blood, someone who resembles her the most.

Like the only flame suddenly ignited in the endless night that has already fallen. I, who had already fallen into despair and dizziness, who had almost decided to end my life with a bullet, awakened once more.

If I obtain her, he will lose her, lose his home.

And my life wouldn’t have been a complete failure.

In this world, only she wouldn’t look down on that boy who had nothing and lived like a lowly weed. She would call him brother, urge him to be good. She would disturb his heart without knowing it, just smiling so gently and peacefully, like the softest autumn light he had ever seen in his life.

He doesn’t want to lose her.

He has never had her.

He has nothing left now. After twenty years, the forty-year-old Yin Chen, burdened with sins, cold-hearted, brutal, arrogant, and fierce, suddenly wants nothing else but to take that woman home.

So, he opened the black, soft-covered notebook in his hand.

—

Twenty minutes earlier, Yin Feng stood in front of that door, his hand on the doorknob.

The three people behind him were holding their breath, waiting.

Yin Feng suddenly froze.

It was as if a strange, nimble flash of light instantly passed through his mind. An incredible thought emerged.

Unusual events must have unusual causes.

He knew what he and You Mingxu had overlooked.

The black soft-covered notebook.

In Fan Shuhua’s residence, only one black soft-covered notebook was missing.

Yin Chen’s notebook was gone.

The black soft-covered notebook recorded the growth process of each Punisher, documented the crimes they committed, their desires, and also analyzed the behavioral patterns and psychological characteristics of the Punishers.

And the crime plans that Fan Shuhua had tailored for them.

In other words, what if, like the TV station plan, Fan Shuhua had also analyzed and formulated an ultimate crime plan for Yin Chen? Then she must also have known that he wanted to go home.

If with Fan Shuhua’s help…

If the person behind this series of criminal acts was not just Yin Chen, but also Fan Shuhua.

The dark clouds in Yin Feng’s mind dispersed, replaced by clarity.

Whether Fan Shuhua could accurately predict You Mingxu’s behavior, he didn’t know. After all, You Mingxu was often unpredictable, but his behavior, his criminal psychological analysis, was inherited from Fan Shuhua. Thinking of this, Yin Feng’s heart beat faster. Using their methods against them, could it be that his ability to predict Yin Chen’s psychological patterns, even finding this place, were all part of Fan Shuhua’s plan, which was also Yin Chen’s plan?

If so, what was hidden behind this door was not difficult to anticipate.

He would always be the stumbling block on the path to their crimes and fulfillment of their desires.

Yin Feng suddenly smiled, a smile both wicked and cold. He slowly released the doorknob, stepped back two paces, and said, “Let’s go.”

They still didn’t understand, but they followed nonetheless. After retreating from this dark, empty apartment, back into the corridor, Yin Feng pondered, “Champion, if there’s a bomb in the room, do you have a way to safely identify and detonate it?”

Champion raised an eyebrow: “Of course.”

“Then do it.”

At such close range, in a limited space, the best tool to ensure killing anyone entering the room would be a bomb.

This apartment had vacant units all around it, so it wouldn’t harm others.

Turning the tables, using their methods against them—who couldn’t do that? Now it was his turn to feign death by explosion, hide in the shadows, and see exactly what Yin Chen was up to.

So, fifteen minutes later, the four of them stood in the stairwell one floor below, hearing a deafening explosion. The heat wave and vibration almost made everyone lose their balance.

After a moment of ear-ringing, Yin Feng was the first to straighten up and say, “Let’s go,” turning to head downstairs.

After descending a few flights of stairs, Yin Feng took out his phone, wanting to ask You Mingxu about the situation on her end, but found there was still no signal. He had noticed earlier that the signal in this building was poor. Whether due to the explosion or not, there wasn’t even one bar of signal now.

He put his phone back in his pocket.

When they reached the eighth floor, a sudden, sharp alarm sounded faintly from below. From that distance, the sound would immediately make one think of a cheap motorcycle that had been accidentally bumped.

Chen Feng and the others perked up their ears but didn’t pay much attention, continuing to descend.

Yin Feng, however, froze.

He raised his head. There happened to be an outward-opening window in the stairwell, allowing him to see the conditions in the residential area. Green everywhere, several roads, some cars, some people. His gaze shifted, following the direction from which the alarm sound came. That road was mostly shaded by trees, and one could vaguely see many parked cars, including several motorcycles. Yin Feng’s gaze roamed along the road, suddenly stopping—

From too far away, the man was just a black silhouette, seemingly carrying someone in his arms, walking in the opposite direction from the building. In the blink of an eye, he vanished into the tree shade, disappearing.

At this time, You Mingxu should be at the chicken farm, whether or not the hostages had been rescued. She couldn’t be here—a voice in Yin Feng’s mind calmly analyzed.

But a strange intuition rose in his heart, various details flooding his mind—the explosion that was supposed to kill him according to the plan, the phones with no signal, the suddenly triggered alarm, the man carrying someone away… Yin Feng abruptly turned his head. Chen Feng, standing behind him, meeting his gaze, felt a chill.

Yin Feng’s face was cold and grave: “Chen Feng, Champion, go get the car immediately and notify Ding Xiongwei of the situation here. Xiao Yan, come with me.”

Xiao Yan responded with a clear “Yes,” bypassing the other two and darting behind Yin Feng. Yin Feng began sprinting downstairs, with Xiao Yan closely following. After a moment of surprise, Champion and Chen Feng hurriedly followed as well.

Yin Feng’s skills in parkour and lock-picking were both learned from Xiao Yan. Otherwise, when You Mingxu was taken away by Ah Hua and his companions, he couldn’t have climbed down so quickly, sneaked into the trunk of their car to hide, much faster than Xu Mengshan and the others. Soon, he and Xiao Yan widened the distance from Champion and Chen Feng behind them, descending several floors rapidly.

In less than two minutes, the two had run downstairs. Yin Feng quickly determined the direction and led Xiao Yan toward where the man had disappeared. A moment later, Chen Feng and Champion also came down, glanced at the direction they had run, exchanged a look, and headed to get the car, pursuing from two fronts.

Yin Feng had barely run halfway when he saw a black sedan suddenly drive out from the intersection ahead, heading toward the complex exit. The silhouette of the driver was vaguely visible, strongly resembling Yin Chen, though it flashed by too quickly to be identified. Yin Feng’s heart felt as if something had violently grabbed it, yet through the tinted glass, it was impossible to see whether there was anyone in the back seat.

“Xiao Yan!” Yin Feng called out. Xiao Yan had also spotted the car, her gaze quickly scanning around before pointing, “Teacher Yin, this way!” The two immediately took a shortcut, running toward the pedestrian exit.

Several hundred meters behind them, Champion, with a grim expression, drove a car out forcefully. Chen Feng, equally grave-faced, was frantically making phone calls.