Zhan Wei said he had merely followed Qi Yan’s instructions — using the guise of a one-month celebration to send Zhou Jin an invitation, drawing her to Nanshan Estate.

The address on the invitation was fabricated. Qi Yan had done it this way for one simple reason: Zhou Jin was embedded in the Major Crimes Unit, surrounded by too many police officers at all times, which made it difficult to move against her directly.

He needed to create an opportunity — a pretext for Zhan Wei to approach Zhou Jin and carry out the abduction on his behalf.

Just as Jiang Hansheng had suspected, Qi Yan’s ultimate target had always been Zhou Jin. From the moment she received that invitation, every detail of today had been planned in advance.

The shouting and pounding against the door outside grew more frantic. Jiang Hansheng glanced at the trembling door, then released Zhan Wei without any urgency.

“Don’t make trouble,” he said.

A moment later, doctors and security guards pried the door open and rushed in. Jiang Hansheng was already fastening his cuff buttons, standing beside the hospital bed looking entirely presentable.

Zhan Wei’s wife took one look at Zhan Wei slumped across the bed and screamed: “Who are you? What were you doing to my husband?”

The security guards moved to stop him. Jiang Hansheng stepped back instinctively, resisting their contact.

Zhan Wei, seeing this, immediately said: “There was a misunderstanding between us. It’s been sorted out. Everything is fine.”

Leaving aside his child’s safety for the moment — if this were allowed to spiral, there was no telling what else Jiang Hansheng might do.

Jiang Hansheng had no direct evidence in hand right now, and Zhou Jin’s fate was still unknown. He wouldn’t linger any longer. What Zhan Wei needed most at this moment was time to manage the risks ahead.

With Zhan Wei defusing the situation, Jiang Hansheng was able to leave the ward. He walked and dialed Jiang Cheng at the same time, telling him to withdraw immediately.

The wind near dusk had grown sharper.

Jiang Hansheng crossed to the other side of the street, pulled open the car door, and dropped into the front passenger seat. He asked Bai Yang to look up Nanshan Estate.

Just as Zhan Wei had said — the name was fabricated. Bai Yang flipped through map after map without finding any such location in Huaisha.

Qi Yan had sent Zhou Jin an invitation to Nanshan Estate. This was not an impulsive choice. The place had to carry some particular significance for him.

What kind of significance?

Without any lead to follow, guessing blind was no better than dredging the sea.

Jiang Cheng arrived and rejoined Jiang Hansheng. Seeing no action had been taken, he frowned. “Couldn’t get anything out of him?”

Jiang Hansheng pressed his fingertips to his aching temple. “Not confirmed yet.”

Jiang Cheng’s expression darkened in an instant. He slammed his fist against the car door with a crash. “What is going on with you!” he snapped.

Bai Yang was quietly worried too, but he forced himself to say, as though speaking it aloud could make it true: “The task force has already deployed officers to search. The technical team is going through the surveillance footage from the route as well. Maybe… maybe there’ll be good news from that end.”

The air in the car turned oppressive — heavy enough to make breathing difficult.

Jiang Hansheng laced his fingers together, his thumbs pressing down in slow, rhythmic beats. After a long silence, a name surfaced in his mind. Someone who might be able to provide something useful —

Qi Zhen.

Barring any complications, Zhou Jin’s phone should still have her husband Jian Liang’s contact information saved.

He asked Bai Yang: “Has Zhou Jin’s phone been recovered?”

Bai Yang nodded. “The officers found it near the accident scene. But it was smashed to pieces — data recovery will take time.”

Jiang Hansheng had no choice but to call the Huai Guang Lower District police station directly and ask for Jian Liang’s contact details.

His focus felt like a string drawn taut — every second of waiting pulled it tighter.

The helplessness of this position made him question himself over and over. What was he actually doing?

Was every judgment he was making the right one?

Or was he simply wasting time here, accomplishing nothing?

Like that time in the old, dilapidated warehouse — when he had watched them dismantle two innocent people before his eyes, powerless to do anything but wait for rescue.

Even if he pinpointed Zhou Jin’s location, what would be waiting for him there?

He didn’t dare let himself think further.

Qi Yan was not the kind of man who honored promises. Giving someone their greatest hope and then shattering it completely — that fit squarely within his twisted sense of entertainment.

When that moment came, what would he find?

Zhou Jin, already dead? And then — a cold autopsy report, laying out what had been done to her while she was still alive…

How could any of this be happening to Zhou Jin?

The suffocating weight of overwhelming dread stripped Jiang Hansheng briefly of the ability to think at all.

Living through another moment of total helplessness was brutal, agonizing. His right hand trembled against his will. The old, deeply buried craving stirred and clawed at him.

Then, suddenly, his phone buzzed to life — pulling him back from the blankness.

He snapped to alertness. A faint film of sweat had broken out along the back of his neck.

He looked down. An unfamiliar number lit up the screen.

Jiang Hansheng steadied his breathing and answered.

Through the receiver came a quiet female voice: “Professor Jiang. It’s me. Qi Zhen.”

On the other end of the line, Qi Zhen’s face was streaked with dried tears. Her hands gripped the phone tightly, as though she were on the verge of making some weighty decision.

Beside her was Jian Liang, one arm wrapped around her thin shoulders, his palm moving slowly up and down her arm in quiet comfort.

Qi Zhen glanced at her husband. Their eyes met. Jian Liang gave her a small smile.

Drawing something from him, she continued: “The last time you and Officer Zhou came to the house, Lao Jian could tell you were there because of me. I’m sorry — I wasn’t in a good state then. I was so afraid… afraid of Wen Hongsheng…”

Her voice wavered at the end of the name. Something seemed caught in her throat. The words wouldn’t come.

A long pause. Then she found her way forward: “I was terrified that Wen Hongsheng would hurt me. Hurt Jian Liang… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… But Jian Liang told me — if a person can’t face their past, there’s no way to begin a new life, no matter what…”

Her speech was halting, her thoughts not fully in order. Only with Jian Liang beside her had she gathered enough courage to say any of this.

“I can tell you everything I know — to help you,” Qi Zhen paused, then added quietly, “and to help Xiao Yan, too…”

“Wen Hongsheng? Qi Yan’s father?”

He voiced the guess, mouthed the three characters to Bai Yang and gestured for him to look the name up immediately.

Bai Yang’s fingers flew across the keyboard in rapid bursts.

Qi Zhen confirmed it: just as Jiang Hansheng had suspected, Wen Hongsheng was Qi Yan’s father.

When she was fifteen, she had been naive enough to trust someone she knew. She was lured into an entertainment venue and forced into sexual services. Explicit recordings were made of her and used as leverage. Too frightened to run, she stayed trapped there for two years.

The memories had blurred over time — what stayed with her was the absence of color in those days. Filthy. Fetid. Looking back, it was all a wash of ash and gray, drained of every trace of life.

By some turn of fate, she had crossed paths with Wen Hongsheng — who had only recently taken his seat as the head of Dongsheng Group — and became his companion.

When she came of age, Wen Hongsheng proposed.

Most people assumed she had accepted willingly. Accepting the ring meant accepting the proposal. But no one had stopped to consider: in the face of a man like Wen Hongsheng, she’d had no room to refuse.

They never registered a legal marriage.

Over time, Qi Zhen began to realize that Wen Hongsheng was running businesses that could not bear the light. On the surface: real estate, foreign trade, entertainment. In the shadows: drugs, weapons, trafficking — whatever turned a profit fastest, he dealt in it.

He had a circle of subordinates around him. Occasionally, Qi Zhen overheard those men calling him “Old Scorpion.”

She knew Wen Hongsheng was not a good man. But what he was didn’t concern her.

She had never liked him. From the very beginning, he had been nothing more than a stepping stone — a means to escape a place with no bottom and no light.

She wanted to run. Run to the ends of the earth, somewhere no one knew her, and start fresh.

Qi Zhen had always had a wild streak, even when she was young. If she decided to run, she truly dared to run.

But Wen Hongsheng always found a way to track her down. Once, she even tried turning to the police for help — only to wait and wait, and in the end, it was not her family who came. It was Wen Hongsheng.

Qi Zhen still remembered the feeling of that day with perfect clarity.

She had sat in his car. The interior was dim.

Wen Hongsheng threaded his fingers through her long hair, then closed his fist. The sudden sharp pull at her scalp tore a cry from her.

He asked softly: “Why do you run?”

Qi Zhen had been terrified — but terror had made her reckless, and she cursed him to his face. “You’re disgusting.”

Every escape earned her a beating.

Even animals, given enough time and pain, can be broken.

Days stretched into years. Eventually, just the sound of a metal belt buckle was enough to make Qi Zhen’s whole body shake.

She learned to comply. For a time, she even began to accept it — if she was obedient, Wen Hongsheng treated her reasonably well.

Then she became pregnant with his child.

When Wen Hongsheng heard the news, he was overjoyed. He held her and kissed her, murmuring gratitude over and over.

In that moment of self-congratulation, he told Qi Zhen he hoped she would give him a son. One day, he said, he would leave everything — the whole of his empire — to the boy.

Wen Hongsheng believed he was offering Qi Zhen the finest gift imaginable. But when she heard those words, cold crept into her very bones. She understood, with perfect clarity, what it meant — a kind of extreme and bottomless despair, one that would never end.

The child would be hers too. How could she allow her own child to grow into someone like Wen Hongsheng?

The numbers on the dashboard clock advanced in quiet, mechanical increments.

Click. Click.

Click. Click —

Zhou Jin stared at the clock on the wall. It was broken — the second hand ticked one notch forward, then snapped back, forward, then back, its sound the only thing with any regularity in this place.

Something wasn’t right about where she was.

A house this grand wouldn’t leave a broken clock hanging on the wall.

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dim light, she noticed the velvet curtain above the small stage. One corner hung crooked, and the fringe at the bottom had mostly rotted away. This place had clearly been abandoned for years.

The silence was absolute — as though she and Qi Yan were the only two people alive in it.

Qi Yan stood not far in front of her and poured two glasses of whiskey.

Shortly after, he returned to her side and held one out to Zhou Jin.

She looked at him and shook her head. Her eyes were very bright — like sparks in the dark.

Qi Yan, unmoved by her refusal, grabbed her face and forced the liquor down her throat. She struggled violently, and the amber liquid splashed across his hand.

A small amount of it burned its way down Zhou Jin’s throat. She broke into a coughing fit.

Qi Yan smiled, eyes crinkling. “That stubbornness of yours just makes things harder on yourself. Wouldn’t it be easier to cooperate?”

Zhou Jin suppressed her coughing and asked him directly: “Where exactly is this place?”

“Home.”

“A home is where people are,” Zhou Jin said. “Is there anyone else here?”

Qi Yan pursed his lips slightly, as though genuinely considering it, then shook his head. “No.”