The right position. The right moment. Jiang Cheng leapt from the staircase above and threw himself at Qi Yan!

Qi Yan had no chance to guard against it. The two of them crashed to the ground almost simultaneously. Jiang Cheng’s body skidded outward — he rolled twice across the floor, then pushed himself up and steadied his footing.

The lines of his torso were fluid and clean, coiled with latent strength. Pulled to their absolute limit, they made him look all the more solid and unyielding.

Jiang Cheng fixed his gaze on Qi Yan on the floor and said to Jiang Hansheng: “Leave this to me. Go find Zhou Jin.”

Jiang Hansheng was composed and unhurried. Without sparing another glance at Qi Yan, he turned and strode swiftly out the door.

Qi Yan lay sprawled on the ground, his mind blank for a long moment. He braced himself up with one hand pressed to the floor and reached back to feel the back of his head — but the sensation of pain seemed to have been stripped from his body by the drugs.

He let out a low, amused hum and tilted his eyes up at Jiang Cheng. “How did I forget about you? Jiang Cheng — we could have been friends.”

“Friends? That’s genuinely disgusting. You think you’re worthy? What the hell are you?”

Jiang Cheng clenched his fists. The fury he had been holding back for so long was nearly ready to erupt. He charged forward, seized Qi Yan by the back of his collar, and drove punch after punch into his abdomen with tremendous force!

“What did you do to Zhou Jin. What exactly. Did you do!”

He roared with each blow — every punch harder than the last!

Suddenly, a flash of cold light crossed his eyes, followed instantly by a searing stab of pain shooting up his arm.

Jiang Cheng pulled back his fist and retreated, putting distance between himself and Qi Yan.

He had produced a dagger from somewhere — it slid back through his grip and came to rest before his chest in a reverse hold. Qi Yan’s face was already contorted, flecks of blood foam at the corners of his mouth.

“A traitor who has no place in either the law or the underworld — and now you’re playing lapdog for Jiang Hansheng?” He sneered coldly. “Pathetic. He took the woman you loved, took the honour that should have been yours. Jiang Cheng — you were a perfectly good police officer, and look what you’ve made of yourself. Oh, and you killed Yao Weihai with your own hands. Think that’s going to get you back into the force?”

“I’d like to know the answer myself. Why don’t I send you down to ask old Yao for me — whether I’ll ever be a police officer again.”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes had gone bloodshot. Ignoring the pain in his arm, he charged again, weaving with precision around the wildly sweeping dagger.

If the dagger was a flickering arc of starlight, then Jiang Cheng’s movements were lightning — he shot in with pinpoint accuracy, seized Qi Yan’s right forearm, and wrenched with brutal force!

The bones of the hand let out a sharp crack as though snapping. Qi Yan felt the wave of excruciating pain that followed with complete clarity.

The dagger flew from his grip and clattered to the floor. Jiang Cheng pressed his advantage, circling behind Qi Yan and locking his arm tight around his throat. The crushing pressure of his forearm plunged Qi Yan instantly into agonizing suffocation!

The veins at his temples bulged and stood out. His expression turned savage. The wound over his right eye tore open again, blood pouring freely, soaking through the gauze in moments.

Jiang Cheng’s eyes held a ferocity that looked ready to kill. “You can repeat what you said about Zhou Jin just now. Go ahead and say it again.”

He was telling Qi Yan to speak — but his arm kept drawing tighter and tighter, making even drawing breath a struggle.

The colour in Qi Yan’s face rapidly flushed deep red.

He hated the sensation of suffocation. Despised it utterly.

In his memory: Qi Zhen’s hands had once closed around his throat. He had stared up at her eyes through the suffocation — her face twisted with hatred and revulsion.

Fighting the dizziness brought on by oxygen deprivation, Qi Yan reached his hand into his pocket and felt for a small remote control.

Outside the villa, the standby police unit heard a string of gunshots erupting from within. Tan Shiming immediately issued the order to move.

The special operations unit split into three action teams, each assigned to sweep one floor.

One of the teams encountered Jiang Hansheng descending the staircase. He informed them that Jiang Cheng had Qi Yan contained — but Zhou Jin’s whereabouts were still unknown.

The squad leader directed two team members upstairs to back up Jiang Cheng, then led the remaining members in a floor-by-floor sweep of the entire villa.

The footsteps of the special operations unit struck the wooden floors in a sweeping rush — chaotic in volume, yet orderly in movement.

One door after another was kicked in. The beams of high-powered flashlights crossed and swept through every corner of every room.

All colour had drained from Jiang Hansheng’s face. From head to toe, there was nothing left but darkness and pallor.

His expression was sharp and cold. He pushed open a door and called out: “Zhou Jin?”

Jiang Hansheng noticed scattered traces of blood on the floor. Following their direction, he spotted a small fragment of vivid red a short distance ahead.

He picked it up — a torn piece of red skirt. His right hand trembled in a way that was faintly strange.

He closed his fingers around it and held on tightly.

A special operations team member entered behind him and asked: “Professor Jiang — have you found her?”

At that exact moment, Jiang Hansheng noticed a small green light blinking beneath the table ahead. Its rhythm was slow and steady. Before he could step closer to examine it, the light suddenly switched to red.

Beep. Beep. Beep —

A faint warning tone shrieked at high frequency!

“Run!”

Jiang Hansheng reacted in an instant. He sprang to his feet and lunged toward the special operations team member who had followed him in — and then a tremendous blast erupted. The scorching shockwave of the explosion surged outward with staggering force!

Bang! Bang! Bang!

One after another, a whole row of rooms detonated in rapid succession. Glass shattered instantly, and razor-edged fragments burst outward in all directions.

Viewed from a distance, flames leapt and danced inside the second floor of the villa. The fire raged and devoured everything combustible, billowing dense black smoke outward through the windows.

The special operations team members had rushed upstairs to back up Jiang Cheng. And at the very moment he was on the verge of subduing Qi Yan, a chain of explosions erupted beneath his feet.

The tremors from the blasts seemed powerful enough to burst through the floors and tear off the ceiling!

Seizing the split second when Jiang Cheng was thrown off, Qi Yan clawed at the back of his hand, dropped to one knee, and drove all the strength of his back and core into a hard, violent throw downward!

Jiang Cheng was flipped over, his spine slamming hard against the floor. By the time he scrambled up to go after Qi Yan again —

Qi Yan had already snatched up the dagger from the floor, rolled to his feet, and shoved the window open behind him with a single violent push.

The special operations team members who had rushed in to assist levelled their weapons at Qi Yan in unison. “Don’t move!”

Wind laced with thick smoke and glowing embers blew in, scattering Qi Yan’s hair.

He stood with the wind at his face, unhurried, and produced the remote control. “Care to test it? Which arrives first — your bullets, or the next explosion?”

Jiang Cheng had long since grown accustomed to this kind of threat. Even if they let him go, Qi Yan would press that button sooner or later and spare no one in the police force.

He shouted: “Open fire! Shoot now!”

The shadow below the window was a pool of solid black. Qi Yan flashed a grin — and hurled himself backward through the window.

The group was stunned. No one had anticipated Qi Yan would jump. By the time they moved to fire, they were already a beat too slow.

Then, from somewhere within the villa, another thunderous explosion rang out — impossibly close. Jiang Cheng and the other special operations team members instinctively threw themselves flat on the floor.

Dust rained down from the ceiling in a soft cascade.

Jiang Cheng recovered and rushed to the window, leaning out to look below. The grounds beneath were a thicket of green plants and shrubs — not a trace of Qi Yan anywhere.

He looked upward then, and caught a fleeting shadow vanishing at the edge of his vision.

The voice of the special operations commander came through the radio, confirming casualties. Jiang Cheng spun around and snatched a radio from the nearest hand. “He’s on the roof! Have the snipers report his position!”

A bitter wind screamed past, carrying black ash and cinders, howling and surging around Zhou Jin’s ears.

The chain of explosions moved from muffled to sharp and clear — and jolted her back to full consciousness.

Zhou Jin opened her eyes in a dazed stupor. The legs beneath her red skirt were ice-cold and bloodlessly pale.

Her senses returned to her gradually. Feeling the cold, she instinctively tried to curl her body inward.

In that instant, a hand clamped firmly around her ankle.

She looked up into Qi Yan’s face. Her lips began to tremble. She struggled against his grip — uselessly, a few futile times.

Qi Yan: “Shh. Shh —“

He was telling her to be quiet.