When Fan Jia was no longer afraid, her voice became clear and melodious, her expression sincere and brave. Chen Zhaoci gazed at this woman in the air raid shelter under its harsh light—filthy yet somehow completely pure—and felt a tugging pain in his chest.
To Fan Jia, the man sitting at the entrance was gradually becoming calm. Although his behavior was abnormal and terrifying, his profile now looked like that of an ordinary man, speaking to her in a plain voice.
And so they went on, question and answer, one sentence after another, seeming ordinary at the time, yet sketching out a small, reclusive life.
However, after successfully understanding this man’s past, Fan Jia also wanted to ask that question: if your deeply loved girlfriend was destroyed by campus loans, why did you turn around and become their gatekeeper? Especially thinking about that video, where the person holding the camera outside the frame was very likely him. Fan Jia felt a bone-chilling cold. Looking at his quiet features, she seemed to see another twisted face lurking behind his outline.
Chen Zhaoci noticed her hesitation and bent down, bringing his face closer to the iron window: “What do you want to say?”
Fan Jia’s heart jumped, her mind desperately recalling everything Ding Xiongwei, You Mingxu, and Yin Feng had ever said about dealing with psychopaths. Even Xu Mengshan, that kid only two years older than her but cunning as a fox—if it were him, he’d probably play mind games with the criminal too!
Thinking this, Fan Jia suddenly became calm.
She had to defeat him. She had to escape.
A police officer’s weapons weren’t just guns and handcuffs. There was also… the passionately beating heart in her chest.
She remained silent for several seconds, her breathing audible in the dark tunnel. Then she instinctively put her hands behind her back, hiding the ropes that symbolized their adversarial relationship from Chen Zhaoci’s direct view. She raised her head again, lifting her neck high—would this make her appear more sincere?
She didn’t know if what she was doing was right, acting purely on intuition and guesswork.
Chen Zhaoci stared at her upturned, pretty oval face without a word.
Fan Jia smiled, smiling like the girl who had been deceived by him before, her cheeks showing shallow dimples, and said: “Thank you. You said earlier that bringing me here was meant to save me.”
Chen Zhaoci sneered: “But you’re a police officer! You didn’t need my savings at all, and you exposed everything about our operation! Now everyone’s going to jail, and if I’m caught, I’ll go to jail too!”
Fan Jia faltered, thinking damn, that’s true! This thought gave her a hint of pride, but she kept her face controlled and, shifting focus, replied: “But regardless of my profession, no one has ever saved me before. At that time, I wasn’t sure if I could escape, I might have fallen victim to them. It’s all thanks to you, for bringing me to this safe place that no one knows about.”
Chen Zhaoci was silent for a moment, his lips twitching slightly as he said: “Indeed, in all of Huaicheng, no one knows these air raid shelters better than I do. Nobody else needs them, demolishing and collapsing them one after another. Only I remain with them.”
Fan Jia suddenly realized something and asked: “Did you… save me from Fenjin Bao Company through these tunnels?”
Chen Zhaoci snorted and answered: “Of course. Every day, my bosses and colleagues walk above these tunnels, coming and going. Sometimes I stay down here, listening to their footsteps. If I wanted to, I could make any of them disappear from this world without a sound.”
Fan Jia felt her throat go slightly dry, but she still looked at him steadily, forcing out the words: “All these years, you’ve been… persistent, unique, different from others.”
Chen Zhaoci looked at her and suddenly smiled: “Why have you been flattering me non-stop? Want me to let you go while I go to jail?”
Fan Jia’s heart trembled, thinking this guy was very alert. Why did she have the strange feeling of being a rabbit trying to stroke a tiger’s whiskers? But this feeling passed quickly, and a stubborn unwillingness to give up rose in her heart. She blurted out: “I’m willing to understand you because even in such an environment, even while frequently witnessing crimes, you’ve never actually taken a life. When Zhu Xinya betrayed you, you only wanted to know the truth, you never took revenge. You never really participated in Fenjin Bao’s perverted activities. And with me, your first thought was to save, not to kill. Chen Zhaoci, we’re the same kind of people. Though life is hard, we’re still trying to find our way in life. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Fan Jia didn’t know why, but after saying this, tears welled up in her eyes. One above, one below, one in light, one in shadow, separated by several meters, Chen Zhaoci stared at her in a daze, both of them silent.
After a while, he lowered his head and smiled bleakly: “I… haven’t killed anyone directly. But I did dispose of Liu Yisha’s body, following the news reports. That feeling, I’ll never forget it in this lifetime. Watching a once-living person, their bones breaking into pieces under my hands. When lifted, you could hear the fragments rattling inside… You’re wrong, I’m not the same as you. All these years, although I didn’t participate directly, I watched those people I once hated abuse one girl after another, and I couldn’t control myself, couldn’t stop… Fan Lingling, you’re an upright police officer. But I’m in the gutter. My whole life, I’ve been in the gutter!”
At that moment, Fan Jia was almost convinced by him, even feeling a hint of resignation. This self-revealing Chen Zhaoci made her feel a touch of fear, but also an inexplicable bitterness. A voice in her heart told her: that being human shouldn’t be like this.
“No… it’s not like that, it’s not like that,” Fan Jia stammered.
Chen Zhaoci looked up at her, his eyes showing confusion: “Then what is it like?!”
Fan Jia’s face was already flushed, her eyes burning, as she said: “Chen Zhaoci, do you know, I learned in the police academy that, each of us, every person in the world, is naturally more… more attentive to violence and crime. This is… this is probably an innate part of our human nature. This means, that if it were someone else who lost their mother and home from childhood, who tried so hard to live only to watch their girlfriend die before their eyes, they would also have the urge to do bad things. If it were someone else dealing with their fellow human’s corpse, they would also lose control. Others might not have done better than you, but so far, you haven’t taken a life. Because in your heart… you still hold onto hope, wanting to climb out of the gutter, wanting to stand in the sunlight, wanting to break free from all that, right?”