The person holding the camera was Li Jingbo — thick brows, bright eyes, with a naturally youthful quality about him. He was grinning brilliantly into the lens.

Zhou Chuan stood behind him, looking at the camera with a gentle smile.

Li Jingbo raised the camera higher, framing both of them in the shot.

“Standing before you is the former deputy captain of the Leopard Strike Unit, the individual gold medalist at the 13th Sniper Shooting Championship, MVP participant in the team event, candidate for deputy head of the Special Police Brigade, a rising star in the police force, and hailed as the finest flower of the police corps — Zhou Chuan —” he rattled all of it off in one breath, then swung the lens around to point entirely at his own face and continued, “— and his most outstanding observer, Li Jingbo!”

Zhou Chuan let out a hearty laugh and slapped Li Jingbo on the back of the head, scolding: “Show some respect.”

The blow made Li Jingbo’s hand shake, jostling the camera, and the footage went even blurrier.

The two people in the recording were roughhousing, laughing — so vivid, so full of life, smiling without end — celebrating their honor, celebrating a new Steel Forest – Chapter of their lives…

Before long, Li Jingbo set the camera down on a table, and the footage showed only the lower halves of the special unit members moving busily about, calling to each other to gather for a group photo.

Zhou Jin watched it again alongside him, and said with a faint smile: “My brother and Li Jingbo came up through the ranks together — they were very close.”

During the incident on August 17th, after Zhou Chuan was shot, Li Jingbo had disregarded his own safety and gone personally after the enemy’s sniper, Qi Yan. They fought at close range, and Li Jingbo was stabbed over a dozen times by Qi Yan and died on the spot.

Not just Yao Weihai, who had treated Li Jingbo like a son — even Zhou Jin found it impossible to let go of.

Yet Jiang Hansheng’s attention wasn’t on Zhou Chuan or Li Jingbo at all.

He watched the video from the beginning again, and at the midpoint, he suddenly said: “That looks like it might be Zhao Ping.”

Zhou Jin was puzzled and instinctively asked: “What?”

Jiang Hansheng had her look at the video.

When Li Jingbo was facing the camera and introducing himself, Zhou Chuan was standing behind him — and a short distance behind Zhou Chuan, three or four more people had appeared in the frame.

Among them, two men were standing side by side.

The footage was already somewhat unclear to begin with, and from that distance the faces of the people in the shot were impossible to make out.

The person Jiang Hansheng was pointing to — Zhou Jin struggled to discern his features. On top of that, the man had long hair, wild as weeds, giving him a haggard and unkempt look that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Zhao Ping Zhou Jin was used to seeing.

But Jiang Hansheng said: “A person’s bearing is very difficult to change. When Zhao Ping stood, he had a habit of hunching slightly, with the left side of his body dropping lower — a bit of a sloped shoulder.”

Jiang Hansheng was skilled at observing everyone he had ever encountered, and Zhao Ping, who often went on field assignments with Zhou Jin, was no stranger to him.

Zhou Jin studied the footage carefully for a moment and began to feel a faint flicker of familiarity, though she still didn’t dare say for certain. She ventured: “It’s possible. His being there wouldn’t be strange — Zhao Ping used to be in the same special forces brigade as my brother for a while, working as an auxiliary officer.”

Jiang Hansheng asked: “Do you recognize the person standing beside Zhao Ping?”

Zhou Jin looked again. In the footage, there was indeed another man standing beside Zhao Ping, but the two of them were looking in entirely different directions — Zhao Ping was looking to his right, while the other man was looking toward the camera…

Or rather, he was looking at Zhou Chuan.

Zhou Jin studied the image for a while, then asked Jiang Hansheng: “What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”

Jiang Hansheng said: “Zhao Ping and this person may have been friends.”

Zhou Jin said, puzzled: “How can you tell? They don’t seem to have exchanged a single word.”

Jiang Hansheng said: “There’s a concept in psychology called ‘interpersonal distance.’ In social settings, you can gauge the level of closeness between two people based on the physical space they maintain between them.”

Zhou Jin had been craning forward to see the screen and was now nearly pressed up against Jiang Hansheng.

Jiang Hansheng put his arm lightly around her waist and said in an even tone: “Right now, you and I are in ‘intimate distance.’ A little farther out would be the ‘personal distance’ between friends or acquaintances — like the two of them.”

Zhou Jin: “…”

Jiang Hansheng had always had this particular talent — the ability to do something teasing with complete composure. Zhou Jin clearly felt that he had turned the tables on her, yet looking at his perfectly unreadable expression, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was reading too much into it.

Jiang Hansheng withdrew his arm just as calmly, and stated his conclusion without inflection: “Zhao Ping knew him well.”

She shifted her attention from Jiang Hansheng’s face back to the screen, and applied his framework to observe Zhao Ping and the other man.

Although the two were looking in different directions, they were indeed standing very close to each other.

The video continued playing. After Li Jingbo set the camera down, the footage could only capture the lower halves of the special unit members. Jiang Hansheng pressed pause — the image froze at exactly the right moment to show Zhao Ping and the man still standing together.

In an ordinary conversation between friends, people would typically face each other. Even standing side by side, there would usually be eye contact, shifts in expression.

But between Zhao Ping and the man beside him, there was no eye contact whatsoever. In fact, it seemed Zhao Ping actively avoided engaging with the man. Zhao Ping’s body was turned away, angled in the opposite direction, and before long he walked off in the direction he was already facing. This entire sequence of body language indicated a strong tendency toward avoidance.

“We might be able to find this person and ask him about the special forces brigade from back then,” Jiang Hansheng said. “Do you recognize him?”

Zhou Jin kept looking at the figure in the video. Jiang Hansheng, worried she’d be uncomfortable hunching over for so long, stood up and handed her the phone.

Zhou Jin took the phone, glanced at his leg that was still making movement difficult, and at the two wounds on his face that had only just begun to scab over.

She stood quietly for a moment, then slipped the phone back into her pocket. “I don’t recognize him. I’ll have someone else take a look later.”

Jiang Hansheng studied her expression and saw that Zhou Jin was lying again.

People deserved to be respected — even in their lies. He didn’t want Zhou Jin to feel uncomfortable, so, just as he always used to, he acted as though he knew nothing.

“All right,” Jiang Hansheng said.

Zhou Jin picked up the bag with the notebooks in one hand and linked her other arm through his, her mood lifting once more into something breezy and light.

She asked: “Which cafeteria at your university has the best food?”

Jiang Hansheng couldn’t answer that and said: “I’ll ask one of the students.”

Zhou Jin pressed her hand to her forehead. “That’s a lot to ask of you, Professor Jiang.”

After a simple lunch, Zhou Jin drove Jiang Hansheng home. By that point, the clock hands had already moved to two in the afternoon.

Zhou Jin paused at the entryway without going in, helping Jiang Hansheng out of his coat as she said: “I’m heading back to the unit.”

The case wasn’t closed yet. Even though the Major Crimes Unit had given her sick leave, Zhou Jin was not the type to lie in bed and do nothing — the moment her body had recovered even a little, she wanted to go back to work.

Jiang Hansheng knew that was simply how she was. “All right.”

After a brief pause, Zhou Jin brought it up herself: “I might go and check on Jiang Cheng. He was also injured that day, and Mom and Dad have been worried.”

Jiang Hansheng asked quietly: “And are you worried?”

“…”

He truly had a talent for saying things that left people with nowhere to turn.

Zhou Jin looked up and shot him a glare. “I am, actually. Is that the answer you wanted to hear? Even if it were an ordinary colleague who’d been injured and hospitalized, I’d be worried — let alone Jiang Cheng, who was like a brother to me just as my own brother was…”

Jiang Hansheng went quiet almost immediately.

Zhou Jin, the moment she saw him go silent, felt a flash of irritation — she grabbed his face and bit down on his lip, not so light as to be painless, not so hard as to be cruel, but enough to make Jiang Hansheng’s brow furrow.

Zhou Jin said: “What kind of person do you take me for? Do you think I’m that terrible?”

Jiang Hansheng: “…”

Zhou Jin was asking a question she already knew the answer to. She understood that it wasn’t that Jiang Hansheng had no faith in her — it was that he had no faith in himself. So she wasn’t truly angry.

Zhou Jin pressed a soft kiss to the spot she had just bitten, and said: “I’m off, you vinegar jar.”

She straightened her slightly disheveled collar, turned to go — and then Jiang Hansheng’s hand shot out from behind her and caught her wrist.

Zhou Jin was pulled back. His palm pressed against the small of her back and drew her in close against him.

Jiang Hansheng first kissed the tip of her nose, and seeing no resistance from her, closed his eyes and pressed his lips to hers.

The gesture was careful, almost tentative.

Zhou Jin let herself fall into it too. Her fingers slid up from his cheek into his hair, and she kissed him back.

The tip of her tongue caught his lip and drew it gently between her teeth. Zhou Jin traced it lightly, deepening the kiss by degrees.

The deeper the kiss, the tighter Jiang Hansheng held her.

After a long, lingering moment, Jiang Hansheng finally released her, his voice low and rough, and he made her a promise: “It won’t be like this again.”

“Good. That’s more like it.” Zhou Jin’s eyes curved into a smile. “If anything comes up, call me. I’ll come back.”

Zhou Jin patted his back. They separated, and Zhou Jin left.

The car was parked downstairs. Zhou Jin got into the driver’s seat, and the moment the door slammed shut, the inside of the car went suddenly, completely quiet.

She stared at the flower bed ahead in a daze. The sweet smile on her face faded slowly, and after a moment, Zhou Jin took out her phone and played the footage again.

Her eyes didn’t move from the man standing beside Zhao Ping. The man’s face was turned toward the camera the whole time — and even though his eyes were too blurry to make out clearly, for one brief instant, Zhou Jin had the uncanny sensation that she and he were looking directly at each other.

A chill crept through her.

This person looked like —

Zhan Wei.