The red and blue police lights swept in pulsing arcs across the stretch of mountain road, sealing it off. Close behind came the ambulances, arriving at the scene.

Jiang Cheng stepped down from one of the police cars, carrying his black tactical jacket in one hand, wearing nothing but a short-sleeved shirt on top. The lines of his muscles stood out clearly. He was tall and striking, the kind of person who stood out in any crowd—though the injury to his right ankle had him walking with a noticeable limp, which gave him a slightly battered, rougher look.

Jiang Cheng’s gaze swept across the chaotic, crowded scene. He moved through the overlapping figures, pressing forward—and then, all at once, he stopped.

Even from behind, Jiang Cheng recognized her immediately. It was Zhou Jin’s silhouette—and the person she was holding so tightly was Jiang Hansheng.

The hand holding the tactical jacket curled slowly into a fist. He stood there for a very long time. Then he turned and walked away without going any closer.

Zhou Jin held on for a while before finally releasing him. Her heart was still unsettled, and she looked him over carefully as she asked: “Are you hurt anywhere?”

She searched him with her eyes—left and right—and found two long, shallow cuts on Jiang Hansheng’s forehead and cheek where the shattered windshield had sliced through.

Jiang Hansheng could see the fright still vivid in her face. He said quietly: “I’m fine.”

Zhou Jin’s fingertip traced lightly around the edges of the wounds. The more she looked, the more her alarm grew. That explosion a moment ago had left her heart still stuttering, cold sweat rising across her back.

“I’m fine” would never be enough. Not for this.

Zhou Jin gave in to the impulse. She cupped Jiang Hansheng’s face in her hands, tilted her head up, and kissed him on the mouth.

Jiang Hansheng went completely still. His heart sent a current of electricity pulsing through him, a rush of warmth and sensation. Zhou Jin pulled his lower lip gently between hers, and the soft pressure of her tongue pressed against his teeth, tangling with his in a deep, unhurried kiss.

Jiang Hansheng wasn’t fully cooperating—their teeth clicked together more than once—yet Zhou Jin was so uninhibited about it, so utterly absorbed, that she kissed him as if nothing else in the world existed.

Jiang Hansheng was starting to lose his breath. His face and ears had gone red. He managed to pull Zhou Jin back, saying: “Don’t do this, Zhou Jin.”

Even as he refused her, his voice held none of the firmness he’d intended—instead it came out sounding thoroughly mortified. He added: “…There are people watching.”

The two officers who had been helping Jiang Hansheng stand were standing right beside them, fighting visibly to suppress their laughter. The moment he said it, they both immediately waved their hands in vigorous denial: “Nobody’s watching, nobody at all.”

“Please, carry on.”

Zhou Jin had been so entirely focused on Jiang Hansheng that she hadn’t given a thought to the audience. Now that it registered, even she felt her face warm slightly.

Carrying on was out of the question regardless—the ambulances and police vehicles were arriving one after another, and the operation to raid the drug-manufacturing factory had now come to its conclusion.

Along the mountain road, Seventh Uncle was dragged from the wreckage of the car. His head had taken a hard blow in the collision, and he was bleeding considerably, though he remained more or less lucid.

The special police unit escorted him to a vehicle. As they passed by Zhou Jin and Jiang Hansheng, he raised his dark, sullen eyes and spat at Zhou Jin: “You’re out of your mind!”

Zhou Jin gave a light, unbothered smile. “Thank you for the compliment.”

Seventh Uncle’s gaze shifted to Jiang Hansheng. He fixed him with a threatening stare: “This isn’t over—someone will make you pay for this. Just you wait. Both of you, wait.”

Zhou Jin stepped forward, placing herself between Jiang Hansheng and Seventh Uncle, and said crisply to the officer at his side: “Take him away.”

The special police officer gripped Seventh Uncle by the back of the neck, forcing his head down, and said sharply: “You’ve got some nerve—save it for the interrogation room.”

After watching Seventh Uncle be loaded into the police car, Zhou Jin accompanied Jiang Hansheng into the ambulance.

Zhou Jin insisted she was fine and pressed the attending physician to examine Jiang Hansheng first.

His mind was clear, and apart from the fine scrapes on his face, he had a long and vicious gash on his leg from a sharp object.

The female physician came with a syringe to administer a local anesthetic. Zhou Jin had been sitting across from him, and she wasn’t entirely sure what the physician did—but Jiang Hansheng flinched visibly.

Zhou Jin couldn’t help herself: “Could you please be more careful?”

The female physician looked back at Zhou Jin with the syringe in hand, entirely innocent. “Miss, I haven’t touched him yet.”

Zhou Jin: “……”

The physician didn’t seem offended. She gave Jiang Hansheng an amused look: “A grown man, and afraid of needles?”

Jiang Hansheng’s lips were pale. He stared at the needle tip, his throat moving twice. “I’m fine,” he said.

Zhou Jin hadn’t known about this before. But it didn’t take long for her to think of the things Wang Pengzhe had once told her.

Perhaps this fear of his was real after all.

She was torn between tenderness and guilt, and it came to her all at once: she simply moved to sit beside him and reached over to take Jiang Hansheng’s hand.

“I’m here with you,” Zhou Jin said. “It’ll be over in a moment.”

Jiang Hansheng’s wound turned out to be five or six centimeters long. Only when it was fully exposed did Zhou Jin realize how serious it was. He’d been wearing dark trousers, so the injury hadn’t been obvious, and he’d endured it without a word—so she had never noticed.

She watched in silence as the physician cleaned and sutured the wound, a wordless, indistinct frustration building steadily inside her.

Afterward, Zhou Jin said suddenly: “Didn’t it hurt?”

Jiang Hansheng gave a measured answer: “It wasn’t too bad. They numbed it.”

“I mean before getting in the car.” Zhou Jin’s tone was sharp. “How do you manage to just endure everything without saying a word?”

The moment she said it, they both knew what the other was thinking—the last argument between them hung unspoken in the air. Zhou Jin fell quiet. Jiang Hansheng watched her slowly lower her head, and he fell quiet too.

The longer the silence stretched, the stronger the fire in Zhou Jin’s throat burned. She had been right on the edge of life and death just now, and all she had felt was regret over their quarrel—yet now that they were sitting side by side again, she couldn’t stop herself from being angry.

Zhou Jin dropped her gaze and tightened her grip on his hand. The frustration in her finally broke loose: “Who on earth taught you to be like this? You won’t say a word when you’re jealous, you won’t say a word when you’re hurting, you won’t say a word when you’re in pain! I’ve never met anyone like you, Jiang Hansheng—I have absolutely no idea what to do with you.”

She spoke quickly, her voice clear and bright. The words came in a torrent that left not just Jiang Hansheng but the female physician too completely taken aback.

Tears blurred her vision. Zhou Jin blinked, her eyes losing their sharp focus, her head beginning to throb with a dull, heavy ache. The faster she spoke, the shorter her breath became. “One moment everything is fine, the next you’ve suddenly lost your temper. I explained to you that I wasn’t ready to have a child—and in the end you still wanted a divorce. I hadn’t done things right, and I didn’t say anything then—but even when police officers go out to arrest criminals, they still announce ‘Hands up, don’t move!’ first. Who hands down a sentence without even a warning?”

“Zhou Jin, this isn’t your fault—”

Zhou Jin cut him off sharply, determined to say everything she had to say. “Do you think I’m like you—that I can read everything the moment I look at someone? Do you actually think I’m that perceptive? I’m slow, and I’m obtuse, and I’m careless——!”

Zhou Jin was scolding herself with complete conviction, and the female physician beside them was barely holding back laughter, privately thinking: this isn’t an argument at all—this is flirting.

Jiang Hansheng was even more at a loss. He decided to apologize for what had happened before, and said: “I’m sorry.”

Zhou Jin became even more incensed. “Who wants to hear you say sorry! I’m asking you—”

She leaned forward—and in an instant the whole world lurched sideways. Her breathing became ragged and sharp. A metallic taste rose in her throat.

Zhou Jin’s consciousness gave way. Her vision went dark, and she pitched forward, falling straight into Jiang Hansheng’s arms.

In the last moment before she lost consciousness, she heard Jiang Hansheng calling her name—urgently, desperately.

“Zhou Jin! Zhou Jin!”

His voice grew further and further away, fainter and fainter. Though they were so close to each other, they might as well have been separated by mountains and rivers—always failing to fully convey to one another what lay in their hearts.

Zhou Jin tried to open her mouth, to ask him whether he still wanted the divorce. Her lips moved. Nothing came out. And she went completely unconscious.

……

A hospital room.

“I knew from the start I shouldn’t have let her join the serious crimes unit—I said no, I said no, and you insisted I support her…” Lin Qiuyun was crying. “Now look. I can see she’s going to end up just like Zhou Chuan. Only then will you understand regret!”

Zhou Songyue sat in the chair, leaning on his cane, and was silent for a long time before saying: “She’s a police officer. This is what she does.”

Lin Qiuyun’s eyes were red and blazing as she replied: “She’s also my daughter!”

Zhou Songyue frowned, looked down, and said nothing more.

Zhou Jin surfaced groggily from unconsciousness, and found Lin Qiuyun and Zhou Songyue in the middle of an argument.

In her memory, their relationship had always been warm—she had almost never heard them fight.

Zhou Songyue worked at the local station, and there were always stretches when he would be out before dawn and home after dark. When Zhou Jin was small and couldn’t understand why her father never came home at a reasonable hour, she’d feel the loss of it. Lin Qiuyun would pat her head and comfort her, saying that her father was a great hero, and many people needed him, so he had to go everywhere saving the world.

Zhou Jin was a sensible child, and she never cried or made a fuss about it. Back then she had this simple, earnest thought: that when she grew up, she would become a great hero too—and maybe she could even take some of the world-saving off her father’s hands.

“……”

Zhou Jin’s throat ached so much it was difficult to make a sound. “Mom…”

Lin Qiuyun heard her clearly. She came close and reached to feel Zhou Jin’s forehead. “Jinjin, you’re awake?”

Zhou Songyue got quickly to his feet to see for himself.

Zhou Jin made the effort to smile at her, and said: “Mom, did I make you both worry about me again? I’m sorry.”

Lin Qiuyun quickly blinked the tears from her eyes and shook her head. “Nonsense, what is there to be sorry about? Captain Tan told us everything—this operation owes a great deal to you. As long as you’re alright, that’s all that matters.”

“Then don’t fight with Dad,” Zhou Jin said, her voice still hoarse.

Lin Qiuyun shot a sideways glance at Zhou Songyue and let out a deliberately haughty sound. “Fight with him? As if I’d bother.”

A hint of a smile reached Zhou Songyue’s face. “Yes, yes. Quite right.”

Only then did Zhou Jin allow herself to relax. A moment later, her eyes made a slow circuit of the hospital room, and she asked: “Where is Hansheng?”