Zhou Jin hadn’t gone home that night, and had made do sleeping in the dormitory for the night. She slept until mid-morning the next day, when someone came hammering at the door — Zhou Jin mistook it for thunder and jolted awake all at once.

She lay disoriented for a moment, looked out the window to find the sky was indeed overcast and heavy, then heard the knocking again and realized someone was there.

She put on her shoes and went to answer the door.

Her foot had only just been cut by glass — the wound wasn’t deep, but walking still hurt. She limped her way to the door and pulled it open, and a tall figure loomed over her.

She looked up and saw it was Jiang Cheng, wearing a full police uniform today, which was unusual. He had removed his cap; his hair was slicked back with gel, forehead and brows exposed, the lines of his face looking especially striking. Somehow, the crisp formality of the uniform, on him, still managed to carry an air of easy, roguish charm.

Jiang Cheng had one arm propped against the doorframe, looking down at her from above. “You actually slept here?”

Seeing it was Jiang Cheng, Zhou Jin felt the weight of her worries come flooding back all at once and couldn’t summon much energy. “I was working overtime,” she said.

She limped over to grab her jacket. Jiang Cheng noticed her uneven gait and asked, “What happened to your foot?”

“Nothing,” Zhou Jin said.

Jiang Cheng was blocking the doorway. Zhou Jin angled herself to slip past, but Jiang Cheng caught her by both arms and pushed her back inside.

They were standing quite close now. The smell of cigarettes on him had faded considerably; his uniform carried a distinctive clean scent of soap.

“Xiao Wu, can you stop treating me like this? I don’t know what exactly I did wrong… I accept that you don’t have feelings for me, I’ve made peace with that — but we grew up together. If we can’t be together, can we at least talk to each other?”

“I haven’t been doing anything.”

Jiang Cheng gave her a sidelong, slightly teasing look. “Really?”

Seeing him slipping back into his old incorrigible manner, Zhou Jin felt both annoyed and amused, and gave him a kick. “Really! I’m just a little tired.”

Jiang Cheng grabbed the spot she’d kicked, making a show of being in pain. “This is a brand new uniform — if you dirty it, you’re washing it.”

Zhou Jin was a little curious. “Where did you even get it?”

Jiang Cheng stepped back and stood properly at attention, two or three paces away. “I had Sister Dan get it ready for me. What do you think — do I look anything like the man of your dreams from back in the day?”

He had told Yao Weihai that no matter what, he wanted to come back and see Zhou Jin one more time as a police officer.

So here he stood, letting Zhou Jin look him over.

Zhou Jin regarded him steadily for a moment, then said, “You look very good.”

Jiang Cheng: “…That’s all you have to say?”

Just then, an officer came jogging up and said to Jiang Cheng, “Officer Jiang, everything’s ready on that end — Team Leader Tan is asking you to come down.”

He caught sight of Zhou Jin and added, “Senior Sister, perfect timing — Team Leader Tan’s been looking for you too.”

Jiang Cheng raised a hand in acknowledgment from a distance. “Got it, heading over now.”

Zhou Jin put on her jacket and did her best to hide her limp, keeping her expression neutral so no one would notice, then said, “Let’s go.”

Zhou Jin and Jiang Cheng arrived together at the monitoring room. Tan Shiming shook hands with Jiang Cheng first, then turned his gaze to Zhou Jin and said with a gruff sound, “The report was well written.”

Zhou Jin’s eyes curved with a smile. “Does that mean I can go back out on fieldwork?”

“Depends on your performance.” Tan Shiming gave her shoulder a pat of approval, then turned to Jiang Cheng. “We need you to identify the personnel involved in the illegal trade from the footage.”

“Not a problem,” Jiang Cheng said.

One by one, rows of suspects filed into the identification room. Jiang Cheng picked out the core members of Hengyun Logistics who had been involved in the illegal trade — three people in total — who were then taken separately into interrogation rooms.

All three said nothing at first. Even when confronted with the transaction footage as evidence, they played dumb, feigning ignorance to every question.

The harder they were pressed, the more they wavered — but just as their psychological defenses were being ground down to the very edge, they held firm, and held their silence for a long time.

Tan Shiming judged that their resolve had been sufficiently worn down and finally sent Jiang Cheng in to handle the interrogation himself.

When Jiang Cheng walked into the interrogation room in his police uniform, the man being detained took one solid look at him and froze — then instinctively called out, “A’Cheng?”

Jiang Cheng smiled lazily, walked over and offered him a cigarette. “We’re old acquaintances — no need for introductions.”

The man didn’t take it. Jiang Cheng wasn’t in any rush; he pulled a stool to the man’s side and sat down.

“Talk now, and you still have a chance to earn credit,” Jiang Cheng said. “You might even keep your life and walk out of prison, live to see your grandchildren born. Once the others start talking, that chance is gone.”

“You’re trying to scare me?”

The prisoner’s dilemma — the man understood at least something of how interrogations worked.

“I’m just being straight with you. We may be on opposite sides, but we’ve known each other for at least three years. I don’t want to watch you walk into a dead end.” Jiang Cheng said. “Boss He got wind of things and bolted the moment he heard — did he even warn you? At this point, why are you still taking the fall for him? Besides, if the police hadn’t gathered enough evidence, we wouldn’t have moved on Hengyun Logistics in such a big way.”

“…”

Jiang Cheng pretended to glance at the time. “I’d imagine they’re getting results from the other interrogations pretty soon.”

“I genuinely never thought you were an undercover.” The man seemed to have worked something out all at once, but his reaction was surprisingly calm — he simply smiled. “You’re tough, I’ll give you that. When the police shot you during that last transaction, I watched them wheel you into surgery myself. You really almost didn’t make it… Jiang Cheng, you’ve got some luck on your side. You were this close to dying. If you had died then, it would’ve been so much better for us — we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

Jiang Cheng said, “If it hadn’t been me, there would have been someone else. The moment you chose this path, you should have known this day would come.”

“You’re right.” The man smiled, picked up the cigarette, and nodded at Jiang Cheng to light it. “I’ll talk.”

Once the interrogation was done, Jiang Cheng came out of the room and went to find Tan Shiming.

In addition to obtaining a statement on the facts of the illegal trade, Jiang Cheng had also extracted a key piece of intelligence from them.

On the day of the Golden Harbor operation, it had originally been Boss He — He Wu — who was supposed to attend the exchange. Instead, he had sent Jiang Cheng in his place and spent that day dining at the Ruixiang Grand Hotel himself.

The police had always believed that the Golden Harbor operation had been Qi Yan acting out of revenge against Yao Weihai — but in reality, that day, He Wu had been hosting an international broker from Myanmar at the Ruixiang Grand Hotel, where they had negotiated and finalized a drug deal.

Drug enforcement in China had always been strict, keeping the domestic market narrow. Qi Yan had only just taken over from Old Scorpion’s position and was eager to consolidate his standing. His true ambitions lay in the international market, and this deal was his foot in the door.

“Do you remember the drug manufacturing operation I mentioned before?” Jiang Cheng said. “They should be running around the clock right now, pushing out product for this overseas transaction. The police pulled an informant from within their ranks — without their inside eyes, all they know is that we’re focusing our investigation on Hengyun Logistics. This is the best possible window to take them all down at once.”

Tan Shiming said, “Can you confirm the exact location of the facility?”

“It’s all up here — I won’t forget.” Jiang Cheng tapped his temple. “For this operation, I have two requests, and I hope Team Leader Tan will agree.”

Tan Shiming’s expression became serious. “Go ahead.”

“First: give me an action team, and let me personally lead the arrest. Second…” He glanced at Zhou Jin beside him. “I want Zhou Jin as my deputy.”