Zhou Jin listened, and let out a small, quiet smile. Her spirit, numbed to the edge of paralysis by the weight of her anguish, began slowly, tentatively, to revive.

How could she give up? She wanted to ask Jiang Hansheng herself — just what kind of evening glow was so beautiful that he could never stop thinking about it.

If only she could go and look at it with him, just once more.

Zhou Jin gazed at Jiang Hansheng’s face on the screen. After a little while, enduring the pain that radiated through every part of her body, she summoned her resolve and let her eyes sweep across the music hall.

She noticed that on the tall narrow side table in front of her sat the whisky glass Qi Yan had been drinking from moments ago.

Zhou Jin began shifting her chair — inch by inch — toward the glass.

Her lips moved lightly, as though speaking to Jiang Hansheng: “When I get home, we’re going on our honeymoon. I haven’t taken a proper holiday in a very long time…”

Cold sweat slid down her cheek and collected at the point of her chin.

Zhou Jin stretched her neck as far as it would go and bit down on the rim of the glass. The moment she let go, it dropped to the floor at her feet.

The floor was layered in a carpet of dense, intricate pattern. The glass spun once on its base — and did not shatter.

Zhou Jin closed her eyes briefly, clearly disheartened by the glass’s complete lack of cooperation. But she did not stop. She adjusted the angle of her gaze and kept talking: “And then there’s The Lord of the Rings — I genuinely almost fell asleep reading it. Why don’t you explain what’s so wonderful about it?”

She looked toward Jiang Hansheng on the screen as though waiting for a reply. No answer came.

Zhou Jin lowered her voice and continued: “There you go, not saying a word again. Teacher Wang says you’re a sealed jar — whatever you’ve been through, you won’t say it out loud. Whatever you want, you won’t ask for it either… You do it on purpose, don’t you? You make people regret things on your behalf, make people ache for you!”

Hot tears fell.

She swallowed back the stinging in her nose and refused to let herself go on crying. She looked at the glass on the floor, then twisted her ankle slightly and looked down at the slender, narrow heel of her shoe.

Zhou Jin gave a quiet laugh. “Do you see how far ahead I plan?”

In an instant — the glass was crushed to fine shards of broken glass beneath the sharp point of her heel. Without a moment’s hesitation, Zhou Jin identified the right position, shifted her center of gravity to one side, and with a heavy thud toppled sideways to the floor, chair and all.

She had no time to dwell on the dizzying surge of pain from the fall. The hands bound behind her back scrambled urgently across the floor — and within moments found a piece of glass of exactly the right size.

Her heart hammered in her chest. She turned her hands over and began to saw at the rope, fragment by fragment, her eyes locked on the door with relentless vigilance — terrified that the next second, Qi Yan would walk back in.

Beneath the glass window, Qi Yan picked up the landline receiver and listened as his subordinates reported the container explosion — and told him that the officers had pulled back at the very last moment before entering, with no casualties sustained whatsoever. Qi Yan smiled faintly.

Those officers tracking the van had clearly taken his bait — and yet had slipped the hook at the final moment. He did not believe for a second that this was any kind of coincidence.

Qi Yan gave orders for his people to evacuate swiftly, then hung up, pulled out his phone, and dialed a string of numbers.

Inside the car, Jiang Hansheng’s expression was one of intense focus. He stared at the screen, scanning the list Bai Yang had compiled — fourteen properties and three corporate headquarters registered under Wen Hongsheng’s name.

He dismissed them all almost at once.

Qi Yan had an Oedipus complex. In a certain sense, Wen Hongsheng was his rival for Qi Zhen’s affections. Qi Yan was arrogant, haughty, and supremely contemptuous of the world — he would never regard anything belonging to Wen Hongsheng as something worth claiming for himself.

Within that family, Wen Lang had held an importance to Qi Yan that far exceeded that of Wen Hongsheng.

He told Bai Yang to look up the properties registered under Wen Lang’s name.

At that moment, his phone rang.

Jiang Hansheng did not lift his gaze from the screen. He reached over and pressed the answer key without looking.

Once connected, the caller remained completely silent.

Jiang Hansheng called out several times without response. In the silence, his expression gradually hardened and turned cold. He said: “Qi Yan.”

At the sound of that name, Bai Yang’s breath caught. He tensed in an instant and signaled urgently for Jiang Hansheng to cooperate with him so they could attempt to trace and locate the call through the phone number.

Jiang Hansheng shook his head at him. Qi Yan’s mind was meticulous — he would not leave himself exposed in something so obvious.

“Professor Jiang — you’re always so sharp.” Qi Yan spoke with a note of genuine appreciation.

Jiang Hansheng asked: “Have you had your fill yet?”

Qi Yan said: “What a shame — because you’ve allowed yourself to be distracted, this game is about to end before it’s even truly begun. Your sharpness may have saved a police tactical unit, but it cannot save your own woman.”

Jiang Hansheng said: “Eleven minutes and forty-three seconds.”

Hearing that, Qi Yan’s expression lit up with excitement. His toes curled and released against the floor, his body rocking forward and back in rhythm — like a child about to leap.

“You found the surprise I left in your home!”

He was referring to the clock running backward.

Qi Yan’s fingers tapped against the windowsill in a measured, steady rhythm — once, and once again. Jiang Hansheng could faintly hear it.

He pressed his lips together and looked at the list on the screen, then said: “You’re still in Jingzhou?”

“Is that your guess? Jiang Hansheng, you’re wasting Officer Zhou’s life.”

He remained unmoved and pressed on: “Within the city limits, or outside them?”

“……”

“Then it’s outside the city.” Jiang Hansheng said. “You’ve always enjoyed drawing attention to yourself, but for this game to proceed smoothly, you would still choose somewhere remote and quiet.”

Qi Yan laughed. “Wait — drawing attention to myself?”

Jiang Hansheng said: “When a child doesn’t know how to speak, they make noise through shouting and throwing things — trying to draw their parents’ attention. Qi Yan — all those women you killed in Huaiguang back then. Whose attention were you trying to get?”

“……”

No response came. Jiang Hansheng did not press further.

He needed to keep Qi Yan invested in the game. The more engaged Qi Yan was, the safer Zhou Jin would be — but he could not push too hard and provoke him into fury.

“Everything you’ve done is for the sake of avenging Wen Lang. If I were you, I would choose somewhere he could see.”

“……”

“It seems I’m right. Perhaps… Wen Lang’s burial site?”

“……”

“No? His home, then?”

Jiang Hansheng heard the rhythm of his tapping fingers change abruptly. He said with certainty: “Ah — his home.”

Qi Yan narrowed his eyes. “Professor Jiang, I have a genuine desire to ask you for lessons in deductive reasoning right now.”

Jiang Hansheng said: “Let me hear Zhou Jin’s voice, and I’ll tell you where you gave yourself away.”

“You’re that certain she’s still alive?” Qi Yan turned the question back on him.

This time, it was Jiang Hansheng’s turn to fall silent.

Qi Yan smiled. “Less than ten minutes now. I look forward to seeing you.”

Click.

Bai Yang flipped his laptop around and held it toward Jiang Hansheng with visible excitement, displaying a photograph of a European-style building. “There’s a villa in the city’s southern district — originally registered under Wen Hongsheng, but the owner was later changed to Wen Lang.”

At the same moment, an important piece of information came through from Qi Zhen’s end as well: back when she had become pregnant, Wen Hongsheng had promised to build her a private garden estate on the city’s outskirts.

Jiang Hansheng asked Bai Yang: “The address?”

Bai Yang said: “Southern district. Zongshen Shoal.”

Qi Yan switched off his phone and tossed it out the window without a second thought.

He gazed out at the pitch-black sky, eyes narrowing, and the smile on his face gradually disappeared.

He left the room, walked down the long corridor, and made his way back to the music hall, whistling lightly as he went.

On the chair, he could see the silhouette of a figure in a red dress — slender and willowy against pale skin.

The question Jiang Hansheng had thrown back at him — “whose attention were you trying to get” — drifted back to him without warning. Something cold and sardonic stirred in the depths of his heart.

Qi Yan crossed to Zhou Jin, bent partway down, and cupped her face in his hands.

He looked deeply into her dazed, exhausted eyes and said softly: “Your man is useless. He won’t make it in time to see you one last time.”

His hand began to slide slowly downward, closing gently around Zhou Jin’s neck.

Zhou Jin held his gaze and said: “I’ve worked something out.”

“Say it, then.”

Qi Yan permitted it, and savored it — her parting words, a condemned person’s final testament. He leaned his body down toward her, letting the tip of his nose brush lightly from her temple to her cheek, his lips grazing against her skin with the faintest, barely-there touch.

There was a particular fragrance to Zhou Jin — a scent distinctly her own, now mingled with the iron tang of blood. Complex and concentrated, intoxicating.

Zhou Jin said: “How could someone like you suffer from guilt? The thing that causes you the most pain is loneliness.”

“Is that so?”

“You see Jiang Hansheng as your rival, your enemy — watching him sink to the level of a killer just like you fills you with excitement. You’re standing at the bottom of a rotting swamp, and you’ll use something as debased as drugs to drag him down into it with you, deluding yourself that there might be one person in this world who can understand you…”

Qi Yan’s eyes reddened slightly. The hand closed around her neck began, inch by inch, to tighten.

“Stop dreaming, Qi Yan. He is nothing like you. No one cares about you — but there are many people who love him. Even if Jiang Hansheng were truly about to fall, I would pull him back!”

At that exact moment, Qi Yan caught a glint of cold light reflecting off the floor. In the instant he registered what it was, he looked up — and found himself staring directly into Zhou Jin’s eyes, sharp and hard as blades.

The rope snapped loose. Zhou Jin’s hands tore free of their bindings. She seized the glass fragment — gleaming like a sliver of frost — and slashed it viciously at Qi Yan’s eyes.