The interrogation room.

Jian Liang sat beside Qi Zhen, their hands clasped tightly together.

Speaking of those old memories still frightened Qi Zhen. Whenever the fear came, Jian Liang would wrap a steadying arm around her shoulders and say softly: “It’s alright. I’m here.”

Two uniformed officers were recording Qi Zhen’s testimony.

After Qi Zhen had become pregnant, Wen Hongsheng gradually relaxed his vigilance over her. Seizing the opportunity of a shopping trip one day, she had slipped away and quietly fled back to her hometown. With the help of her cousin, she had gone to a small county town where nobody knew her, and built a life there.

It was there that she gave birth to two children — Qi Lang and Qi Yan.

The years of raising them had been hard, yet the three of them — mother and sons — had lived in peace and stability for a long time.

Gradually, Qi Zhen had come to believe that Wen Hongsheng had lost interest in her and would never come looking again. Then one day, without warning, people from the Wen Family tracked her down at the towel factory where she worked.

It was on that same day that Qi Lang, wanting to protect his younger brother and mother, had willingly gone away with Wen Hongsheng. By tremendous fortune, Wen Hongsheng had not known at the time that she had given birth to twins — so with Qi Lang gone, Qi Yan still remained by her side.

In the beginning, that was how Qi Zhen had seen it: keeping Qi Yan was the one silver lining in her misfortune.

But she later came to understand that this was the beginning of another nightmare entirely.

Thinking back on everything, Qi Zhen pressed her hands over her eyes and wept without stopping.

She was consumed by regret — regret for having leaned on Qi Yan as her sole source of emotional support during the most fragile period of her life. Terrified of losing this son too, she had locked him away inside a world that contained only her. She had not given him any education. She had not let him form friendships with others…

When she first witnessed Qi Yan reveal the side of himself that belonged to his father, Wen Hongsheng, Qi Zhen felt despair about the future for the very first time. She told herself then that Qi Yan was a failure — a demon she had brought into the world with her own hands.

She had wanted to take him with her into death — to kill this child, and then kill herself, and put an end to everything.

And she had done exactly that.

At the very threshold of death, it was Jian Liang who had pulled her back to the world of the living. She carried a past she could barely bring herself to look back on, and a soul she felt was stained beyond saving. Jian Liang was completely different — different from every man she had ever known. She accepted his help, accepted his care, and fell helplessly in love with this clumsy, tender man.

For his sake, she had never disclosed any information about Wen Hongsheng to the police, afraid of inviting retribution. Had she not encountered Zhou Jin and Jiang Hansheng, she might never have found the courage to come forward.

In the camera footage, Qi Zhen’s face, though marked by the passage of years, remained beautiful. Her eyes were half-lowered. She was silent for a long time.

“After the suicide attempt, the police brought Qi Yan to my bedside. When I looked at his face — how much it resembled Wen Hongsheng’s — I was terrified… So I ran. I left A’Yan behind, and walked out of the hospital alone. I had nowhere to go. Jian Liang found me. He was afraid I might do something to myself again, so he let me stay at his place temporarily to recover.”

She had lied to Jian Liang at the time, telling him she had given the child to her ex-husband to raise. In truth, she had abandoned Qi Yan.

Jiang Hansheng was quiet for a moment, then continued his questions over the phone: “Where did you last see Qi Yan?”

Qi Zhen said: “Right there in Huaiguang. I don’t know how, but he tracked down Jian Liang.”

Jiang Hansheng narrowed his eyes slightly and asked: “Was it before the serial murder case, or after?”

Qi Zhen remembered this clearly, and answered with certainty: “After. The case was making enormous waves at the time. Jian Liang was also very busy.”

“When A’Yan came to the door, Jian Liang wasn’t home. I was the one who answered. That child had violent tendencies — I was afraid he would hurt Jian Liang — so I knelt down and begged him not to come and disturb my life anymore. I told him to go find Wen Hongsheng. He turned and left. That was the last time I saw him…”

Just as he had suspected.

Exactly as Jiang Hansheng had previously deduced: Qi Zhen’s abandonment had been one of the primary triggers driving Qi Yan to kill. And afterward, when Qi Yan had sought out Jian Liang — perhaps he had heard word of Qi Zhen’s whereabouts; or perhaps he had been—

Thinking of turning himself in?

No one but Qi Yan himself knew his true motivation. But whatever his purpose, after committing crimes of monstrous proportions, he had gone to find Jian Liang, who was still a police officer at the time.

The moment that door swung open, the face he saw was not Jian Liang’s — it was Qi Zhen’s. Qi Zhen, who had already abandoned him once, looked at him and said again: “Don’t come and disturb my life.”

On his last visit to Jian Liang’s home, Jiang Hansheng had noticed that Jian Liang had a habit of keeping his police uniform hung on the wall — a display of the pride he took in the profession.

It was safe to assume that the young Qi Yan, standing in that doorway, had been able to look past Qi Zhen and see that clean, neatly pressed uniform on the wall.

In that single moment, he had suffered a twofold betrayal — one from Qi Zhen, one from Jian Liang.

His hatred of the police had most likely taken root there.

From the Huaiguang serial murder case to the “8·17” major gun heist — the background investigation into the primary suspect, Qi Yan, had always been riddled with gaps. Qi Zhen’s testimony was the final missing piece of that puzzle.

Jiang Hansheng’s question about where they had last met was not asked on a whim.

Qi Yan was a criminal who placed a great deal of importance on ritual. It was a deeply ingrained psychological tendency.

He had sent Zhou Jin an invitation in advance, under the pretense of a one-month celebration banquet for Zhan Wei’s child. The address on the invitation was Nanshan Manor. For an abduction planned with such elaborate precision, “Nanshan Manor” could not possibly be a random location — it had to hold some profound significance to him.

The last time Qi Yan and Qi Zhen had met was at Jian Liang’s home in Huaiguang — meaningful, yes, but far too distant to serve as a place of confinement.

Jiang Hansheng thought for a moment, then asked: “Nanshan Manor — does that name mean anything to you?”

Qi Zhen considered it, then answered: “No. Nothing comes to mind.”

At that moment, Tan Shiming called Bai Yang from his end. The moment Bai Yang heard that there had been a new development, he switched to speakerphone so Jiang Hansheng could listen.

Over the line, Tan Shiming’s voice came through in a rapid, urgent rush: “The technical team traced the surveillance footage along the Ring Road, tracking a silver van out to the docks beyond the city limits. The unit has already moved in, and while searching the holds and containers one by one, they’ve just located that van…”

Jiang Hansheng furrowed his brow. He turned the information over in his mind for two or three seconds, then said immediately: “Pull back.”

Tan Shiming was puzzled: “What?”

Jiang Hansheng said: “It’s a trap. Tell them to retreat!”

At that same moment, out at the docks, a fully armed tactical unit was closing in on the silver van.

One team member swept the van and confirmed it was clear, giving a hand signal. The rest began searching the surrounding containers.

Just as they pulled open the door of one of the containers, a retreat order suddenly crackled through their earpieces.

They halted all action without hesitation and pulled back swiftly. But in the span of a single blink, a deafening explosion roared to life behind them.

The entire container was blasted apart, erupting into a roaring blaze.

The explosion had come with almost no warning at all. One or two seconds later, and the team members at the front would have been blown to pieces.

The sudden turn of events briefly robbed everyone of the ability to think, leaving them suspended in shock.

The unit commander swiftly confirmed the safety of his team, and upon learning that no one had been injured, immediately reported the explosion to command headquarters.

The reverberations of the blast had barely faded when Tan Shiming felt cold sweat threatening to break through his skin.

Qi Yan was terrifyingly capable. He not only possessed a highly sophisticated counter-surveillance awareness, but had used it to construct a trap with meticulous precision.

While using the GPS on Zhou Jin’s person to mislead Jiang Hansheng, he had simultaneously used the traffic surveillance network to mislead the police unit.

Inside the car, Bai Yang was momentarily stunned into silence before pressing a hand to his chest and exhaling: “Thank heavens. Thank heavens.”

Jiang Hansheng’s fingers tightened into a hard grip. He knew that luck like this would be nearly impossible to count on a second time.

Jiang Cheng stood outside the car, watching Jiang Hansheng sink once more into a silence stripped of any visible direction. He rapped on the car door. “Jiang Hansheng. We don’t have much time left. Stop spacing out.”

Fifteen minutes remained until the two-hour deadline ran out.

In the dim and grey music hall, the recording continued to play.

Zhou Jin was utterly drained. Cold sweat had soaked through her hair, pressing loose strands against her cheeks and forehead. Faintly, through the haze of her exhaustion, she heard the landline telephone give out a series of old-fashioned rings.

Qi Yan raised an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement crossing his face, and then he left the small music hall.

Zhou Jin was alone.

She raised her head once more and looked at the screen. The camera had been pulled in very close — so close that Jiang Hansheng’s slow, drawn-out breathing could be heard with perfect clarity.

He was receiving another injection. It allowed the pain to recede, and his expression had even taken on a faint quality of ease.

The one holding the camera was still Feng He.

He asked: “Mr. Jiang — happy? This is good stuff, isn’t it?”

Perhaps some kind of hallucination had taken hold. The corner of Jiang Hansheng’s lips curved gently upward, and he spoke a single sentence — the voice of someone lost in a waking dream.

“So beautiful.”

Feng He was visibly confused. “What?”

His mind adrift, Jiang Hansheng repeated it: “The evening glow. So beautiful.”