Beams of snow-white light crisscrossed over the surface of the dark lake.

Tan Shiming, Bai Yang, and the others rushed over. Against the light blazing behind them, everyone saw Jiang Hansheng walking toward them, step by step, carrying an unconscious Zhou Jin in his arms.

Zhou Jin rested against Jiang Hansheng’s chest. The red of her dress was even deeper and more vivid now, and the arms and calves exposed beneath it were a pale white that radiated cold.

Jiang Hansheng’s shirt was that same white — soaked through entirely by now, water dripping from the ends of his hair, his eyes darker than ever.

Under the night sky, red and white intertwined, and behind them, smoke and fire still rolled and roared.

Bai Yang stood frozen, then slowly removed his Bluetooth earpiece. After a moment he came back to himself and moved forward to receive them.

“Quickly! Quickly!”

Tan Shiming looked at the unconscious Zhou Jin and waved urgently for the medical personnel to bring the stretcher over.

Jiang Hansheng set Zhou Jin down onto it. Bai Yang looked at Jiang Hansheng — his complexion pale to the point of resembling a corpse — and asked with concern: “Professor Jiang, are you alright?”

Suddenly, a cry of terror erupted from the lakeside.

It came from a young special operations team member who had just jumped into the garden lake to search for Qi Yan, and had quickly hauled him out of the water.

The moment he set him down on the ground, Qi Yan coughed out two mouthfuls of water — and then his hand shot out, a rope locking tight around that team member’s throat in a stranglehold!

Under the relentless cascade of setbacks and the continued stimulation of the drugs, Qi Yan’s mind had descended into chaos and madness.

The other special operations team members raised their weapons at once. “Let him go!”

In this moment, he had no intention of escaping — no thought of offering any terms of exchange. He wanted only to kill. Right here, in front of all these police officers, he wanted to extinguish the living breath in the hands that gripped him.

Jiang Hansheng had not yet lost his sharp instincts. Within the span of a single second, he sensed the danger.

His gaze swept rapidly through the crowd — and suddenly landed on Qi Zhen’s ashen face at the rear.

Qi Yan’s vigilant eyes swept one full circle around him. His free hand darted out and drew the tactical dagger from the team member’s belt, raised it, and was about to drive it into the man’s throat —

At that moment, he suddenly heard a voice from close by — a cry that tore itself raw from the throat: “A’Yan!”

The voice was so familiar that he knew instantly who it was. And yet so distant — so changed — that he could no longer recall the last time he had heard Qi Zhen call his name.

His movement froze. His arm trembled, and the blade did not fall.

Qi Zhen pushed away the megaphone in Jiang Hansheng’s hand and pleaded: “Let me see him.”

Jiang Hansheng pressed his lips together and stepped aside.

Jian Liang supported Qi Zhen as they walked forward. Tan Shiming required them to stop at a safe distance and come no closer.

Qi Zhen looked at him from afar. She saw the cold glint of the blade. She saw the ravaged, grotesque face behind the team member.

Qi Yan in this moment resembled a wild beast teetering on the edge of complete madness.

Qi Zhen cried out, her voice raw: “A’Yan — stop killing. Stop killing!”

Qi Yan’s attention shifted quickly to Qi Zhen. He looked at her — first bewildered for a moment — and then a smile split open across his blood-soaked face.

“You finally came to see me.” Qi Yan said.

Qi Zhen’s breath trembled.

He asked again: “Why did you take so long to come?”

There was an aggrieved reproach in his tone. Qi Zhen covered her face, and tears streamed down instantly.

After so many years apart, she and Qi Yan were less than strangers to one another. Qi Zhen did not know what she could possibly say to him.

Yet Qi Yan had so much he wanted to say to her.

He grabbed the special operations team member by the collar and shoved him forward. His expression was that of a child showing off a school award to his parents.

“I’ve done so many things — did you see? Look at all these useless fools, I had them spinning in circles. Do you have any idea how worthless they are!”

Seeing that Qi Zhen showed no happiness for him, Qi Yan continued: “All these years, I’ve done well for myself. The Wen family’s fortune has collapsed. Wen Lang is dead. But I’ve done well!”

He was growing incoherent — more like a man descending into madness.

Qi Zhen said: “Don’t do this. A’Yan — stop compounding your mistakes. Put down the blade. Put it down!”

“Alright!” He agreed with startling speed, almost eagerly. “I’ll do whatever you say. After — after I get out of prison, we’ll live together. I have money now, so much money…”

Hearing those words, Qi Zhen instinctively drew herself closer to Jian Liang’s side.

Jian Liang’s brow furrowed faintly. His palm settled on Qi Zhen’s shoulder and gave two quiet, steadying strokes.

That barely perceptible flinch was the final straw.

Jiang Hansheng stood quietly watching Qi Yan from a distance.

A three-year-old child bangs on things and makes strange noises to get their parents’ attention.

When Qi Yan committed the serial killings in his youth, it was his own version of that cry. The deliberate ritualistic staging of the bodies served more than his own self-gratification — it had a very simple additional purpose:

To draw Qi Zhen’s attention.

He wanted Qi Zhen to carry a guilt forever for abandoning him — hoping that guilt would drive her to regret it, to take him back and raise him properly at her side.

This longing had lived in the deepest part of him all along.

Yet Qi Zhen’s single step backward had made it definitively clear: that longing was nothing more than a futile delusion.

The hot blood surging through him suddenly ran cold. Even a moment ago, he had not yet fallen into this degree of absolute despair.

Qi Yan lowered his head. The deep hollows of his eye sockets were filled entirely with shadow. Without the gauze, the wound over his right eye was fully exposed, raw and unspared.

In a long silence, he suddenly let out a few short laughs — as though talking to himself.

“I should have killed you, actually.”

His laughter grew louder and louder. He shoved the special operations team member aside with one hand and stared straight at Qi Zhen.

Tears welled in his left eye socket.

“That’s right — he was right. I should have killed you from the very beginning!” Qi Yan raised the dagger high, the blade pointed at Qi Zhen, and walked toward her one step at a time. “I should have killed you. Qi Zhen!”

“Don’t move! Don’t move!”

Bang!

A bullet tore through the air from high above. The distinctive crack of a sniper rifle split the night sky in a single thunderous clap.

The shot was flawless in its precision. It punched straight through Qi Yan’s leg.

His knee buckled violently, and he dropped to a half-kneel on the ground. The wound from the bullet immediately flooded with blood.

The gunshot sent a shock through Qi Zhen’s heart. Had Jian Liang not been holding her, she would have nearly collapsed entirely.

“A’Yan!”

She made to go to him — but Jian Liang held her fast. “It’s not safe. Don’t go!”

Qi Yan behaved as though he felt no pain. His eyes never left Qi Zhen. He raised the dagger and continued walking toward her.

“Kill you, kill you…”

Jiang Hansheng’s right hand was concealed behind his back. He watched everything before him with a cold expression, as though waiting for something.

Then — bang, bang, bang!

The special operations team members fired three shots in rapid succession, striking Qi Yan squarely.

The bullets tore through his body. A burst of fresh blood sprayed outward. His steps were finally stopped.

In his very last moments, all he wanted was to see Qi Zhen’s face clearly. What he saw was the terror on it — and the cruelty of it was that this was the ordinary reaction anyone would have at witnessing a stranger’s death.

For some reason he could not explain, in the instant before he lost consciousness entirely, he thought of Wen Hongsheng.

Five years ago, when he heard the news that Wen Lang had been shot and killed by the police, Wen Hongsheng’s habitually cold face had betrayed a look of profound grief. For a long time, he had said nothing at all — only lowered his head in silence, then looked up at the sky, swallowing his tears.

He had pressed a hand to his aching chest, turned, and descended the stairs — and without warning missed a step, his entire body plunging headlong from the high staircase.

Wen Hongsheng had died of a broken heart.

He could not help but resent Wen Lang. He could not help but resent every ordinary person in the world.

When they died, tears and flowers accompanied them. But his life had faded away in the long dark night, and not once — not even in the very last moment before death — had he been able to see on Qi Zhen’s face that look of heartbreak and devastation on his behalf.

All he heard was a piano melody — one played with wrong notes, and yet brimming with brightness and joy — as though it had travelled across time and space and was now floating softly beside his ear.

In the distance, there seemed to be light.

Qi Zhen sat before an old, worn-out piano, playing. Her brother stood at her side, listening quietly.

Both turned around and smiled at him — gently, warmly.

They asked: “You’re home, A’Yan?”

Qi Yan wanted to go to them. He lifted his foot and took one step forward — then his knees gave way, and he pitched headlong to the ground, crashing down hard.

The red and blue lights flashed in alternating pulses. The special operations team slowly closed in. One of them crouched down, examined Qi Yan’s body, and turned to report back:

Confirmed dead.

Throughout this long and endless night, the cold wind howled on.