A splash of fresh blood burst outward!

Qi Yan’s vision went dark, and for a brief moment he lost consciousness. Hot, sticky blood streamed from his right eye. He raised his hand to cover it, and pain erupted in an instant.

Qi Yan doubled over, and as if only just registering what had happened, let out a low, agonized roar.

Zhou Jin had originally intended to drive straight for his throat, but Qi Yan had reacted too quickly — she had only managed to wound his eye.

At this point, Zhou Jin’s stamina was nearly completely spent. She knew she had no means to keep tangling with Qi Yan.

She kicked off her high heels, got to her feet on bare soles, and ran for the exit.

She burst through the door into a long corridor shrouded in dim grey.

On one side was a wall hung with framed paintings; on the other, a row of rectangular windows had been cut into the wall. Through the dust-filmed glass, Zhou Jin could make out the pitch-black sky outside and a moon veiled in murk.

She ran along the wall, and midway spotted an elevator. She pressed the button twice — no response. A dead end.

At that moment, Zhou Jin spun around in alarm and saw that Qi Yan had already given chase.

His right eye had been slashed, robbing him of half his field of vision. Even walking had become unsteady — the moment he came through the door, he nearly crashed into the wall.

His blurred gaze chased after that flash of red.

Qi Yan panted heavily. The pain had reached its extreme, and in response he broke into a frenzied laugh.

“Good — how interesting! Even more interesting now!”

He had said it before: the resistance of the weak and lowly was the most entertaining thing of all.

A hunter must always savour the process of the hunt — savour the prey’s struggle and defiance. Only then did the moment of capture hold any meaning.

Hearing Qi Yan’s voice, Zhou Jin didn’t dare stop. She kept running. At the far end of the corridor was a staircase.

She dragged her legs downward, one step at a time, while the distinct sound of Qi Yan’s footsteps echoed clearly from above.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

He seemed to have adapted to the pain in that short a time. In a tone full of amusement, deliberately drawing out each syllable, he called to her: “Zhou Jin — Officer Zhou — sweetheart~?”

She had truly surprised him.

At the start, Qi Yan had not regarded Zhou Jin as any kind of adversary. In his eyes, she was nothing more than a little lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

Now, this little lamb had slashed out one of his eyes.

Blindness? Pain? These were not things Qi Yan feared.

The searing pain only made his nerves crackle as though charged with electricity.

Qi Yan pressed a hand to his own chest. His heart thundered wildly beneath his palm. Was there anything that could thrill him more than this moment?

He was utterly addicted to this feeling — the heartbeat, the agony — both were proof that he was alive.

He was no longer in a rush to kill Zhou Jin. He wanted to catch her first, then kiss her lips, and savour her thoroughly.

Zhou Jin fought through her dizziness and turned the corner down to the floor below. Stretching before her was an open, undivided level — an open-plan space cluttered with an assortment of items. Glancing upward, she could still see the corridor of the floor above.

She couldn’t make out much, and she didn’t have much time to look.

She pressed on downward, and reached the ground floor.

Zhou Jin ran with everything she had. She spotted a door and grabbed the handle on the inside, rattling it back and forth repeatedly — it wouldn’t open.

Her heart hammered with wild unease. She felt it on her back, like the prickling of countless needles.

That dark figure stood at the far end of the corridor. The shadow pooling on the floor seemed to transform into a devouring monster, drawing closer to her inch by inch.

The hand Qi Yan had been pressing to his face dropped. Fresh blood dripped from his fingertips onto the floor.

In the hazy moonlight, the entire right half of his face was soaked in blood, while the pupil of his left eye had dilated wide with excitement and desire. His expression was grotesque and terrifying — the very image of a demon.

He asked in a low voice: “Officer Zhou — have you gotten lost?”

Zhou Jin had no choice but to abandon the door and keep running. Apart from her own ragged breathing, she couldn’t hear anything else.

Gradually, the corridor ahead of her warped and spun in wave after wave of blurring vision.

Zhou Jin was exhausted. Her legs felt as though they had been filled with lead — aching and heavy. Drawing on the last of her awareness, she found a room with a door she could actually open.

Inside stood furniture, all draped in black dust covers. Zhou Jin swallowed against her parched throat, stumbled forward to the back of a sofa, and folded her knees to conceal herself behind it.

The cold of the night seeped into her skin, little by little.

Zhou Jin trembled faintly. She tightened her grip on the shard of glass in her hand, calculating: this time, at what angle should she drive it in to sever Qi Yan’s major artery?

She could not miss again.

Zhou Jin breathed in shallow gasps, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier.

She thought: I cannot pass out. Not now. Not yet.

Qi Yan searched room by room, his pace unhurried and leisurely, the sound of his footsteps appearing almost languid within the silence of the villa.

He pushed open a door and felt his fingertips brush the sticky residue of blood left on the handle. The corner of his lips curved involuntarily.

Zhou Jin heard his footsteps and gripped the glass shard even tighter.

By the faint light filtering in, Qi Yan caught sight of the red hem of a dress peeking out from beneath the foot of the sofa. His steps halted, and then he smiled: “Found you.”

In a flash, the glass shard gleamed, thrusting at him from behind. But Qi Yan seemed to have anticipated it entirely. He turned, seized Zhou Jin’s wrist in an iron grip, and twisted it back with a single motion.

Zhou Jin cried out in pain. Strength drained from her fingers and the glass shard clattered to the floor.

Qi Yan shoved her hard against the wall. Zhou Jin’s face struck the surface — cold and unyielding — and a shudder ran through her entire body.

Her brow furrowed deeply. She struggled several times but could not break free of Qi Yan’s grip.

With his free hand, Qi Yan felt along the hem of her skirt and found, sure enough, that a piece had been torn away.

She had thought to use the red dress as bait and ambush him from behind. However, Qi Yan had already lost one eye — he would not underestimate her again.

Qi Yan opened his mouth and bit down on Zhou Jin’s ear, snickering: “Clever little trick.”

Zhou Jin’s back was already soaked through with cold sweat. Yet all the pain throughout her body was nothing compared to the sensation at her ear, and the revulsion welling up inside her was indescribable.

She said: “Qi Yan — do you really think you’re going to walk away from this?”

“Walk away? Only failures run.” Qi Yan said. “Jiang Hansheng is bringing the police here right now. I originally planned to bury you and them all together in this place — repayment for my brother’s life. But now I’ve changed my mind.”

He let out a soft laugh, his tone saturated with possessiveness. “You blinded one of my eyes. You owe me.”

Zhou Jin paid no attention to any of his threats. She had caught only two words clearly — bury together.

How did he intend to bury them?

The red and blue lights of police vehicles flashed and pulsed, painting the night sky in shifting colours. The special operations unit had already arrived at Zongsen Beach and deployed to encircle the villa in a controlled perimeter.

Tan Shiming directed his team to help Jiang Hansheng into a bulletproof vest.

At that moment, Bai Yang came scrambling out of the vehicle with a laptop in his arms, handed Jiang Hansheng an earpiece, and said: “Landline.”

Jiang Hansheng took it and pressed the earpiece to the side of his head.

Tan Shiming gave a hand signal, gesturing for the nearby team members to quiet down.

Shortly after, the call connected.

Jiang Hansheng fixed his gaze on the row of darkened arched glass windows in the distance and spoke first: “I’m here.”

A sniper at elevation, peering through a scope, spotted a curtain shift in one window, then immediately radioed the command vehicle with the location.

“Third floor. No other suspicious individuals detected besides him.”

Qi Yan stood concealed behind the curtain. Through the narrow gap, he could see the sweep of police lights flickering across the sky.

He showed not a trace of panic. He responded to Jiang Hansheng with perfect composure: “You’re late, Professor Jiang.”

“Where is Zhou Jin?”

“Would you like to hear her voice?”

A camera sat beside him, no image — yet Zhou Jin’s anguished cries came through it clearly.

A sharp gust of wind swept through the grove behind Jiang Hansheng. Dead leaves rustled with a churning sound. Jiang Hansheng stood rigid in the wind for five or six seconds.

Jiang Hansheng’s silence made Qi Yan laugh with cruel amusement. He asked: “Satisfied?”

Jiang Hansheng said, his voice cold as ice: “Zhou Jin is your only bargaining chip, Qi Yan. Don’t let yourself lose your only leverage for negotiation.”

“Don’t worry. As I said — the game has only just begun.”

Qi Yan continued: “If we’re going to negotiate, face-to-face is more sincere. Professor Jiang, I’ll be waiting for you. Oh, and by the way — feel free to bring those useless police officers with you. You’re all most welcome.”

The call was routed through a laptop, and Zhou Jin’s voice could be heard with perfect clarity by Tan Shiming, Bai Yang, and Jiang Cheng seated inside the vehicle.

Tan Shiming’s expression was grave. He said to Jiang Hansheng: “Right now we have no grasp of the interior layout of the villa. Visibility is too poor — the snipers cannot take a shot.”

Jiang Hansheng said: “I know. Have them stand by in position. I’ll go in and negotiate with Qi Yan. We move only after Zhou Jin is confirmed safe.”

Tan Shiming glanced at Jiang Hansheng’s right leg, still not fully recovered, and frowned. “No. This is far too dangerous.”

Jiang Hansheng said: “There is no better option.”

In a typical hostage situation, the perpetrator usually presents two demands: first, prepare a ransom; second, don’t call the police.

Qi Yan had no interest in money. This abduction of Zhou Jin was purely for the purpose of exacting revenge on Jiang Hansheng. Moreover, he clearly knew that Jiang Hansheng was a consultant for the major crimes unit with close ties to the police — and yet he had never once demanded that the police be kept out of it.

Qi Yan had perhaps already prepared countermeasures for the police.

Whether it was the Huaiguang serial murder case or the “8·17” armed robbery, the police force had already paid far too great a price. There could be no further sacrifice.

Jiang Hansheng finished securing his bulletproof vest and, after a moment’s thought, said to Tan Shiming: “Please bring Qi Zhen and Jian Liang to the scene.”

Jiang Cheng stepped forward from the shadow-drenched rear, the lines of his face hard to the extreme, and said: “I’ll help you.”

Inside the villa, the small light bulbs on the ceiling cast a cold blue light across the floor. Scraps of blood-stained paper were scattered everywhere. A layer of gauze now covered Qi Yan’s right eye.

The wound to his eyeball had clearly burdened his every movement with deep and relentless pain. He clenched his teeth and injected something into his own arm.

The liquid pushed gradually into his body.

Shortly after, Qi Yan closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and drew several long, deep breaths.

Behind him and to one side, the indicator light on the camera mounted atop its tripod blinked in a steady rhythm.