In the video, Jiang Hansheng was dressed in a snow-white shirt, his collar hanging half-open, the skin at his neck catching a faint, thin sheen of cold sweat.

His wine-red dress trousers stood out in sharp contrast against the dim, murky footage — vivid and striking, like a withered rose.

At that moment, someone beside Qi Yan in the video egged him on: “Young Master Qi, have some fun with it!”

Qi Yan looked at Jiang Hansheng for a moment, then tossed the pocket watch in his hand to the person who had spoken.

Zhou Jin recognized that person. When the Major Crimes Unit had cooperated in investigating the “8·17” case, she had come across his photograph in the files. She believed his name was Feng He.

In the footage, Feng He wore a wide, gleeful grin — cunning and taunting — as he dangled the pocket watch back and forth.

He said to Jiang Hansheng: “You catch it, I’ll give it back. Come on!”

Zhou Jin could not understand what had happened to Jiang Hansheng. His hands and feet were clearly unbound, and yet even the act of standing appeared to cost him a tremendous effort.

He had his right leg bent, his back hunched over, as though something of immense weight pressed down upon his shoulders. His entire body shook without pause.

After a long while, he finally managed to straighten himself upright. His steps lurched beneath him, and he lunged toward Feng He, shooting his hand out to snatch the pocket watch.

His fingertips grazed it — but it was plain that his reflexes were no match for Feng He’s.

Feng He snapped his hand back, and tossed the watch to another one of his companions.

That man flipped the watch cover open and clicked his tongue in theatrical appreciation: “Not bad — pretty wholesome, actually. No wonder Mr. Jiang can’t get her out of his head. Looking at her, even I want a piece.”

He squeezed his own crotch and thrust his hips forward.

Zhou Jin could not make out the subtle shifts in Jiang Hansheng’s expression clearly — she could only see that his face had drained to a ghastly white, and that a sound clawed its way out of his throat: a low, raw roar of absolute fury and anguish, as he threw himself at the man.

He grabbed at nothing, once again.

This time, however, Jiang Hansheng could not hold his footing. With a heavy thud, his entire body pitched forward and crashed flat to the ground.

Something seized and twisted inside Zhou Jin’s chest. Her heart seemed to slam straight up into her throat, choking her until her eyes began to sting.

The others in the video erupted into a burst of raucous laughter. Feng He walked over and planted his foot on Jiang Hansheng’s right hand, grinding down on it with savage force.

He said: “Weren’t you holding it together so well when you first got here? No matter what we did to you, not a single sound — that was really unsatisfying, you know… Doesn’t it feel better to just cooperate now?”

Zhou Jin stared straight at the screen, her eyes entirely blank. She even found herself unable to help but doubt — was this really Jiang Hansheng?

How could this be Jiang Hansheng?

The man who would sit quietly on the sofa, absorbed in a book, and at the sound of the door opening would look up toward the entryway, eyes soft with a gentle warmth, and say in a low voice — “Zhou Jin, you’re home” — that was who Jiang Hansheng should be.

Or the man in the Major Crimes Unit conference room, with his clean-cut features and composed bearing — set apart from ordinary police officers, always still and unhurried, his voice so low it had an almost tender quality, and yet carrying an edge of sharpness that revealed itself when least expected — that was who Jiang Hansheng should be.

Or the man when ill, drained of all energy, needing to be coaxed through each small sip of water, grumbling softly when roused from sleep that “I’m tired” — fragile as a piece of beautiful porcelain, the kind of person you would want to compensate with every good thing the world had to offer — that was who Jiang Hansheng should be.

Her Jiang Hansheng — how could he possibly be reduced to what she saw in that recording?

He was sprawled in humiliation on the floor, his right hand ground beneath a heel until the pain radiated through his entire body. He looked as though he had been stripped entirely of the capacity to resist or even to think — left with no choice but to become the plaything of their mockery and ridicule.

What on earth was it?

What in the world was Jiang Hansheng trying to take back from them?

Was it truly only that pocket watch?

And then, all at once, her sluggish mind finally retrieved the memory attached to that pocket watch — Jiang Hansheng had once followed her for three years, protecting her for three years, and all because he had once lost a pocket watch that held her photograph inside it.

The tears Zhou Jin had been holding back in her eyes broke through in a sudden rush, streaming silently down her face.

Not long after their marriage, she had come to know that Jiang Hansheng had nightmares too.

Over and over again he would cry out “give it back to me” — and then jolt awake drenched in cold sweat.

She had never asked. She had never, never, never once asked him what those nightmares were about.

Those raw and bleeding things — the things that haunted him day after day, that made even sleep an unsteady place for him — those nightmares that would not let him rest—

It had been a pocket watch all along.

In the end, the pocket watch was returned to Qi Yan’s hands.

Qi Yan planted his right foot on the freight crate and leaned forward, looking down at Jiang Hansheng on the floor with cold, commanding ease.

Qi Yan traced his fingers over the engraving on the watch. He let the chain dangle and swing back and forth before Jiang Hansheng’s eyes, and said: “Mr. Jiang, why don’t we have a little chat about this girl? How does that sound?”

A long silence followed. No answer came from Jiang Hansheng. Qi Yan drew slightly closer.

In the tense and suffocating quiet of the footage, Jiang Hansheng’s voice was very low — but very clear.

He said: “I will kill you.”

In just those four words, something savage and ferocious seemed to surge toward the surface — like a venomous curse, or a pronouncement of judgment.

Moments later, Jiang Hansheng rasped again: “Go to hell. Go to hell!”

Qi Yan, however, suddenly laughed. Not only the Qi Yan on the screen, but also the Qi Yan sitting beside Zhou Jin — every time he watched Jiang Hansheng gradually being consumed and overrun by hatred and rage, something in him soared with elation.

He wrapped his arms around Zhou Jin and pressed his lips close to her ear. “Look at that — he has thought about killing people, too, all for your sake. Officer Zhou, do you really believe that in the moment Jiang Hansheng pulled the trigger and killed my older brother, he was innocent? The great, righteous criminal investigation consultant brought so low as to become a killer himself — isn’t that quite the spectacle?!”

Zhou Jin was drenched in cold sweat, her face and lips drained of all color. She did not respond to Qi Yan’s words. She kept her gaze locked on the footage, refusing to look away from a single frame.

She had heard about Jiang Hansheng’s ordeal from Wang Pengzhe — but hearing about it was nothing like seeing it. Before, she had felt heartache. Now, it was a pain that tore her apart from the inside.

It was too much.

It was the kind of pain that made a person sick to their stomach, that drove a person toward madness.

She watched as those men took turns pressing thin needles beneath Jiang Hansheng’s skin — slowly, deliberately, pushing them in until they vanished entirely. Each time, every single time, it sent terror shuddering through every part of her.

Jiang Hansheng rarely released pain through screaming. He seemed to possess a tolerance that went beyond the limits of ordinary human endurance — even at the most extreme edge of agony, he would allow himself no more than a single low, muffled grunt, after which he would clench his jaw shut and make no further sound.

Qi Yan, meanwhile, had a habit of injecting him with a slow-release drug precisely when he was on the verge of complete collapse.

Sometimes, when the camera was close enough, Zhou Jin could even hear the sound Jiang Hansheng made when the injection was administered — a soft, quiet exhale, like a long-held breath finally let go.

It was a form of dependency conditioning — like Pavlov’s reflex. Each time Jiang Hansheng reached a point of pain he could no longer endure, he would begin to crave the moment Qi Yan would give him the injection.

Under such extreme and brutal conditions, the conditioning took effect with terrifying swiftness.

The footage played in fragmented, non-sequential jumps. Before long, something obscured the lens entirely, and the screen went grey-black. Zhou Jin could no longer see Jiang Hansheng — only hear the voices.

“It hurts terribly, doesn’t it? Would you like another injection? It would make you feel better.”

It was still Qi Yan speaking — measured and unhurried, every word drenched in contempt and dismissiveness.

A full half-minute of silence stretched on — and then, all at once, as though Qi Yan had glimpsed something, his voice filled with a mocking, delighted smile.

“Well now — Mr. Jiang, have you already begun to crave it?”

Zhou Jin shuddered violently.

“……”

“I thought you’d be able to hold out for longer. You’ve rather disappointed me.”

“……”

“But never mind — for those I consider close companions, I’ve always been generous. All you have to do is ask, and I’ll give it to you. You don’t have much time left regardless. Allowing yourself a little comfort before the end is hardly a sin.”

“……”

Finally, after a prolonged silence, Jiang Hansheng could no longer hold back. A sound escaped him — suppressed, agonized, and devastating.

The pitch-black screen had taken away her sight. All Zhou Jin could do was listen — and she heard every last sound with perfect, merciless clarity. It was Jiang Hansheng’s voice, rising and breaking again and again in cries that were desperate and entirely, devastatingly real.

She shut her eyes. Her lips trembled without stop. Her body and mind had been driven to a place of pain beyond what words could hold.

Layered over those cries in her ears came the memory of his voice from other days — the way he had called her name, “Zhou Jin,” in so many different ways. Uncertain. Laced with a smile. Pleading. Yearning. Edged with restrained frustration…

And yet each time, every single time, every syllable had been saturated with love and tenderness.

Two kinds of sound — existing at the most extreme opposite ends of everything — tore at Zhou Jin’s nerves with wild, mutual savagery. In that moment, she finally shattered.

Like someone who had lost all reason, Zhou Jin threw herself into a frenzy of desperate struggle. Both legs kicked out wildly, the chair scraping and slamming against the floor in all directions — a harsh, crashing, ear-splitting racket.

She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could cover her ears as well, and screamed with everything she had left: “Stop it! Stop it!”

Qi Yan pressed Zhou Jin’s head against the hollow of his shoulder with what appeared to be a tender gesture, running his hand through her hair, murmuring “Officer Zhou” a couple of times in a voice of mock comfort — and all the while drinking in every tremor of her body, every flicker of her fear, every piece of her as she came apart.

Qi Yan held the back of her neck firmly in place, and smiled as he turned her own words back on her: “Officer Zhou — does the guilt tear you apart?”