Jiang Hansheng walked to the front entrance of the villa and looked up, noticing a surveillance camera mounted in the corner.

Everything was under Qi Yan’s control. This place was practically an amusement park he had built for himself.

Jiang Hansheng turned around and exchanged a glance with Jiang Cheng, who stood not far behind him.

Jiang Cheng read his meaning instantly. His expression darkened, and his gaze swept rapidly along the walls on both sides before he gave Jiang Hansheng a hand signal — indicating he would circle around to the rear.

The mist-grey iron gate swung slowly open. Jiang Hansheng steadied his breathing and, enduring the pain of his leg wound, stepped into this so-called “amusement park.”

Qi Yan had discarded the syringe and gauze. He sat in a chair with an air of casual ease, turning a handgun over and over in his hands — Zhou Jin’s service weapon.

Footsteps drew closer. Qi Yan lifted his head to look at the visitor.

Under the cold light, Jiang Hansheng’s face appeared even paler, his eyes dark as ink, carrying an air of severity that brooked no violation.

Jiang Hansheng fixed his gaze on Qi Yan’s wounded eye and asked: “Where is Zhou Jin?”

Qi Yan pressed the muzzle to his own temple. After injecting the drugs, he felt no pain — his body was slightly weightless, almost floating. That sensation of effortless ease, as though drifting above the clouds, allowed him to face Jiang Hansheng with perfect composure.

Qi Yan pointed to his right eye and said softly: “Officer Zhou put me through quite a great deal of suffering.”

Jiang Hansheng repeated, word by deliberate word: “Zhou Jin. Where is she?”

“No rush.” Qi Yan said. “Old friends reuniting — we should catch up first. Please, sit.”

He raised his hand, gesturing for Jiang Hansheng to take the chair across from him, the two of them separated by the length of a long dining table.

Jiang Hansheng stepped closer but did not sit. He planted both hands on the tabletop and leaned his body forward — every aspect of his posture and manner radiating pressure.

“Qi Yan. You want to play — I’ll play with you until the very end. What do you want in exchange for releasing Zhou Jin?”

“Professor Jiang, even begging requires the proper manner.” He looked at Jiang Hansheng and said: “There is still some old business between us that has not been settled. There will be plenty of time to talk once that is resolved.”

Qi Yan pressed the handgun in his hand flat against the tabletop and slid it across toward Jiang Hansheng. Jiang Hansheng did not look down — he caught it with unerring precision.

“Do you remember the wager we once made?”

Qi Yan picked up another handgun and began disassembling it piece by piece.

Jiang Hansheng kept his expression cold and mirrored his actions, methodically breaking the weapon down component by component. Finally, he ejected a single round from the magazine and stood it upright on the table.

Qi Yan rubbed his chin and asked: “What shall we bet on this time? How about Zhou Jin?”

He put the provocation forward in a tone of genial suggestion.

Jiang Hansheng held to his same position as before: “I don’t like to wager with human lives.”

“Whatever you dislike, I like most.” Qi Yan broke into a grin — the smile slightly unhinged. “Your woman has quite an interesting body. She’s worth being the stake.”

Jiang Hansheng’s pupils contracted sharply. His gaze remained locked on Qi Yan, but inside his mind an explosion detonated — his thoughts descended into complete chaos.

He closed his right hand into a fist, and told himself: this is definitely a trap.

It must be.

Jiang Hansheng’s face, from which no trace of emotion could ever be read, genuinely left Qi Yan feeling somewhat deflated. And yet, it only sharpened his competitive hunger.

He spread both palms open toward Jiang Hansheng. “Same rules as before. Once assembly is complete, fire one shot at the glass behind the curtain — consider it a greeting to our police friends outside. How does that sound?”

Jiang Hansheng turned his gaze to the table full of disassembled components.

Could he win?

And if he won, would Qi Yan honour the promise?

“Mr. Jiang, if I were you, that bullet just now should have gone right here. You can’t walk out of this alive anyway — might as well take one down with you.”

“What a shame. Such a fine opportunity, and you failed to seize it.”

There was one bullet standing on the table.

Perhaps even Jiang Hansheng himself had not noticed — his eyes in this moment were filled with killing intent.

If he could be faster than Qi Yan, this shot would not shatter that pane of glass. It would shatter Qi Yan’s skull. He would kill him with his own hands and bring all of this to an end.

No. No — !

Jiang Hansheng clenched his fist. The murderous edge in his eyes receded somewhat.

Now was not the time for such thoughts. Qi Yan had said those things precisely to throw his mind into disorder — to break his rhythm.

Suddenly, Qi Yan’s lips moved: “Begin.”

Before Jiang Hansheng could react, he moved with rapid efficiency — seizing the recoil spring, fitting it into the barrel, the trigger assembly, the locking pin, the slide, each piece slotted onto the frame in sequence, the round fed into the magazine, and then —

Before he could reach the final step, he heard it clearly: a crisp metallic click — the sound of a round chambering. In an instant he understood: Qi Yan had beaten him by an entire step.

Jiang Hansheng abandoned the assembly without hesitation. Exploiting the blind spot of Qi Yan’s injured right eye, he threw himself to the left.

Bang!

Jiang Hansheng rolled behind a low cabinet. The bullet missed him — it punched through the cabinet’s edge and grazed his arm by a hair’s breadth.

In an instant, blood surged forth.

Having fired that shot, Qi Yan likewise dropped swiftly into a crouch, found cover, and braced himself against the possibility of Jiang Hansheng returning fire.

What a pity — the wound to his right eye had compromised his field of vision. Otherwise, that shot should by any measure have passed through Jiang Hansheng’s shoulder and stripped him of his ability to move.

Only after feeding the remaining rounds from his pocket into the magazine did Qi Yan rise again. He fired once more in the direction where Jiang Hansheng was concealed, intending to intimidate.

Seeing him stay hidden and refuse to emerge, Qi Yan’s smile grew ever more brazen. “You’ve lost this round, Professor Jiang.”

Jiang Hansheng tilted his head back, tapped it lightly against the cabinet, and closed his eyes — reminding himself to regain composure quickly. Then he pressed the magazine, carrying its single round, into the weapon and racked the slide.

“But given our many years as acquaintances, I’m willing to give you one more chance.” Qi Yan went on. “I have two questions. I hope you’ll answer them honestly.”

In the darkness, the camera’s indicator light continued to glow, recording everything that transpired here.

Qi Yan asked: “Five years ago, in the ‘8·17’ armed robbery — did you choose to shoot and kill Wen Lang after he had already surrendered?”

Jiang Hansheng did not hesitate. He admitted: “Yes.”

Qi Yan asked again: “Did the task force leader, Yao Weihai, conceal your crime by falsely reporting to the public that Wen Lang had resisted arrest, and that the police had opened fire in response?”

Jiang Hansheng said: “Yes.”

“Good that you admit it.” Qi Yan fired another shot in his direction and said with undisguised malice: “Jiang Hansheng, get down on your knees and come out. Confess to the crimes you have committed. If you can satisfy me, I may consider letting you see Officer Zhou.”

Jiang Hansheng was calculating the number of rounds remaining in Qi Yan’s weapon, his mind racing —

Why had Qi Yan asked those two questions?

He closed his eyes. His throat shifted as he swallowed, and then he said: “You didn’t see me fire the shot, did you? Qi Yan — where were you when I had my weapon pointed at Wen Lang? You led your men in a firefight against Yao Weihai’s tactical team, then returned to the warehouse. You saw Wen Lang raise his hands in surrender. At that moment you knew — Wen Lang intended to shoulder all the blame in your place. So you abandoned him and fled on your own.”

The muscle beneath Qi Yan’s left eye twitched.

Listening to his silence, Jiang Hansheng knew his deduction was nine parts accurate.

“If you hadn’t run, Wen Lang might not have died — because the person I wanted to kill was not him. It was you.”

“Oh,” Qi Yan pressed the still-hot muzzle against his own temple and said, “So Professor Jiang is admitting that he fired that shot with a perfectly clear mind?”

Jiang Hansheng said: “Yes. In that moment I was completely lucid — because I knew exactly who I wanted to kill. Qi Yan, you’ve killed so many people. Do you know who it is you truly want to kill?”

Using the pause between his words as cover, Jiang Hansheng rapidly vacated his position and sprinted for a different piece of cover.

Qi Yan saw him suddenly move and snapped off a shot!

The shot went wide.

Jiang Hansheng had nearly fallen as he went, his leg wound screaming with sharp pain. He forced it down and pressed on: “— You once asked me whether I understood why you absolutely had to kill. I couldn’t understand it, because I have never encountered a killer as tedious as you — whose methods reek of such cheap, vulgar pleasure.”

Qi Yan had always regarded Jiang Hansheng as a worthy adversary. Yet these words brimmed with contempt and disdain for the art of killing that Qi Yan took such pride in. To Qi Yan, this was nothing less than the gravest possible insult.

Qi Yan took two steps in the direction of his hiding place, sneering coldly: “Jiang Hansheng. Provoking me will do you absolutely no good.”

Jiang Hansheng said: “I once led the criminal research team on a six-month study trip to California. I met a number of inmates in the prisons there. Truly artful killing has no humanity, no weakness — only the supreme pursuit of an aesthetic of death. Compared to them, your ‘work’ is utterly crude. Every stage of your killings reflects your own cowardice and inadequacy — because you cannot kill the person you truly want to kill, so you use others as substitutes.”

Jiang Hansheng cast a glance upward, then immediately burst from his position at greater speed and shifted to a new location.

Qi Yan swung the muzzle around. This time, he did not fire carelessly.

“Isn’t that right? You resented Qi Zhen’s betrayal. Seeing her together with Jian Liang, you turned your hatred onto the police. You lured and killed multiple women in Huaiguang. You engineered the armed robbery in Haizhou. Zhou Chuan, Li Jingbo — and later Yao Weihai and Meng Junfeng — so many police officers died at your hands one after another. And yet why are Qi Zhen and Jian Liang, the ones you despise most, living perfectly well?”

Jiang Hansheng’s right leg was bent beneath him. He furrowed his brow, adjusted his breathing, and his voice dropped lower.

He asked: “What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that Qi Zhen will hate you?”

Qi Yan made no reply.

In the silent standoff, Jiang Hansheng’s mind returned to the sound of Zhou Jin’s cry that he had heard over the phone. He could not suppress the vicious impulse that rose within him — to drive this man to utter annihilation.

He knew exactly what words would send Qi Yan plunging into the depths of agony.

Jiang Hansheng’s face remained cold. He spoke, word by deliberate word: “Don’t worry. She may no longer have the energy to spare on hating you.”

He paused deliberately for two or three seconds, and just as something began to stir within Qi Yan, Jiang Hansheng continued: “She and Jian Liang are planning to have another child.”

At that moment, Qi Yan stood fully exposed in the light — white and cold as snow. Jiang Hansheng knelt in the depths of heavy shadow.

Qi Yan raised the muzzle and found that his fingers were trembling. He asked in a low voice: “What did you say?”

Bang!

One shot.

Qi Yan bellowed: “What did you say!”

Bang! Bang!

Two shots.

After the rounds were all spent, the hollow click of the trigger being pulled continued to sound in rapid succession.

At that moment, Jiang Hansheng looked up again toward the figure who had been concealed above for some time, and called out:

“Jiang Cheng!”