Tan Shiming pulled the yellow-haired boy out for a separate interrogation. On previous occasions like this, he would normally have brought Zhou Jin along — but this time he called on Zhao Ping instead.

“Haven’t you embarrassed yourself enough?” Tan Shiming said.

Zhou Jin took out the tie from her uniform and knotted it around her neck to cover the bruising, hoping to soften Tan Shiming’s stance. “How about this?”

Tan Shiming raised an eyebrow and shot back, “What do you think?”

Zhou Jin said nothing and immediately made herself scarce.

Outside the window, the night was as dark and thick as ink. Inside the Major Crimes Unit, every light burned bright.

Zhou Jin put her packed meal in the microwave to heat up. The moment she took it out, a colleague passing by casually speared a piece of meat from her container with a fork and dropped it into his own cup of instant noodles.

In return, he fished a cigarette box from his pocket and held one out to Zhou Jin.

“Pick you up a bit?”

Zhou Jin was about to say no — but she had a quiet disquiet pressing on her chest: over Jiang Cheng, over the “8·17” case, over the failed interrogation strategy with Lai Zhengtian.

She was feeling the strain of it all, and very nearly losing the battle against the craving.

She took it. “Light.”

There was a knock at the door, followed by Jiang Hansheng’s distinctly cool voice. “Zhou Jin.”

Zhou Jin held the flame to the cigarette, and before she could draw the smoke into her lungs, she choked it straight back out.

The people in the office looked up and greeted him. “Professor Jiang — coming in this late?”

Jiang Hansheng replied politely, “I brought food.”

A ripple of knowing laughter. Zhou Jin quickly swallowed her coughing and turned to look at him.

Jiang Hansheng noticed the cigarette between her fingers immediately. He was quiet for a moment, then walked over and set the paper bag he was carrying down on the desk.

“Eating?” he asked.

The colleague nearby took the hint and drifted away.

Jiang Hansheng didn’t smoke, and Zhou Jin felt awkward lighting up in front of him, so she pinched the cigarette out and dropped it in the bin.

“What brings you here?”

Jiang Hansheng took a thermal lunchbox out of the paper bag and said, “I made a bit too much when I was cooking. Would you like to try some?”

“You can cook?” Zhou Jin smiled, genuinely surprised.

Jiang Hansheng gave a straightforward nod. “I can.”

The lamplight cast something soft across his face. Wherever he was, whoever was watching — Jiang Hansheng had a kind of strikingly conspicuous handsomeness that simply couldn’t be ignored.

Zhou Jin bit her lip, trying to work out how she could have had such a faint, forgettable impression of Jiang Hansheng when they were children. It made no sense at all.

The office still had people working in it, and Zhou Jin wasn’t particularly comfortable being around Jiang Hansheng under other people’s eyes. She suggested taking him to the on-duty dormitory she used when staying overnight.

Jiang Hansheng had no objection.

The dormitory was a two-person room. One bunk was reserved for Yu Dan; the other belonged to Zhou Jin.

Jiang Hansheng had never been to her home, where she lived alone. This was the first time he had entered any part of Zhou Jin’s personal living space — sparse as the traces of that life were.

The beds were simply made up, functional enough to sleep in and nothing more — comfort was not a word that applied. Beneath the window, two small square desks stood side by side. Yu Dan had a small potted plant on hers; on Zhou Jin’s desk sat a glass picture frame.

Zhou Jin sat down and opened the lunchbox. Inside were simple, homestyle dishes, but they were beautifully presented, and Zhou Jin found her appetite returning.

“Thank you.” She didn’t stand on ceremony with Jiang Hansheng and picked up her chopsticks immediately. “Though don’t do this again next time — it’s too much trouble. I’m not fussy, I’ll eat anything.”

“It’s no trouble.”

Jiang Hansheng answered absently, his attention on the picture frame. He picked it up and looked down at it. Inside was a photograph of two people together.

The man wore a sharp, impeccably pressed military uniform. His brows were strong, his eyes bright with a clarity that bore a faint, unmistakable resemblance to Zhou Jin’s — perhaps three parts alike. He stood beside Zhou Jin with the bearing of an unsheathed blade — upright, open, unwavering.

Zhou Jin had her arm around his waist. She was younger then, her hair long, her chin tilted up slightly, her smile clean and pure and radiant with life.

Jiang Hansheng’s fingers brushed over her smiling face for a moment. Then he heard Zhou Jin say, “That’s my brother.”

“I know,” said Jiang Hansheng.

Zhou Chuan — formerly the top sniper of the Special Police Tactical Unit, killed in the line of duty during the “8·17” case. He had been struck by two bullets: one to the leg, which took away his mobility; the second directly through the heart, an expanding round that tore an exit wound the size of a bowl through his back. He died on the spot.

Jiang Hansheng’s fingertips drew back slightly. He didn’t speak for a long while.

Five years had passed. Zhou Jin no longer lost herself every time she heard Zhou Chuan’s name.

But she didn’t continue the subject with Jiang Hansheng. Instead she shifted to something else with easy, unhurried naturalness. “You were pretty young when you lived on Gardenia Lane, weren’t you? Your memory really is something.”

Zhou Jin ate the way she did everything — with focus and at pace, her manner neither messy nor particularly delicate.

Jiang Hansheng watched her quietly for a moment, then his gaze moved to the tie knotted around her neck — conspicuous in a way that looked deliberately placed.

When she finished eating, Jiang Hansheng handed her a cup of vegetable juice from inside the paper bag, then pointed at her throat and asked, “What happened?”

Zhou Jin didn’t want him to worry, so she shook her head, took a sip of the vegetable juice, and pulled a face. “This is strange — what is this flavor?”

His expression was serious. “Zhou Jin. Don’t change the subject.”

Jiang Hansheng’s manner toward her was unusually icy and firm — a rarity — and Zhou Jin, for once, had a flicker of guilt. “It’s really nothing.”

Jiang Hansheng pressed his lips together and said nothing. He reached out and pulled the tie away in one motion.

The bruising on her neck looked far worse exposed. The red-purple imprints of fingers were clearly defined — vivid evidence of the force with which someone had tried to choke the life out of her.

Jiang Hansheng’s expression flickered. For a very long stretch, he made no sound.

After a moment, he asked as calmly as he could manage, “Who did this?”

Seeing there was no hiding it now, Zhou Jin simply told him. “I tried provoking Lai San’er a little — he went berserk. But I really am fine. I brought him down, and I went to the medical room and had it checked. It’s just a minor injury. You work in academia — you haven’t seen much of what frontline work actually looks like. In this line of work, something like this is so routine it barely registers.”

“Didn’t I say to relay it to Team Leader Tan first?” He pressed the point. “Zhou Jin, given your personal stake in this, it’s very difficult for you to make calm, objective judgments. I need you to understand that.”

“I don’t see it that way.” Jiang Hansheng’s persistence was starting to irritate her. “I’ll admit I was a bit impulsive — but trying to provoke Lai San’er into losing control, drawing out an admission — that’s a standard interrogation technique.”

“You knew perfectly well that this approach would require putting yourself in harm’s way.”

His expression held a coldness she had never seen from him before.

Zhou Jin was getting annoyed. “Yes. I knew. But Jiang Hansheng, there’s genuinely nothing remarkable about that.”

With a provocation strategy like that, the humiliation Lai San’er experienced coming from a woman would be far more effective than if it came from a man. She had known that the moment she told Tan Shiming, he would never allow her to try it — which was precisely why she had decided to act on her own judgment.

Zhou Jin’s brow tightened. She met his gaze with one that was steady and yielding nothing. “Before I agreed to marry you, I made it clear — this is my work, and it carries a degree of danger. And Lai San’er is nothing more than a peripheral figure. The criminal network behind the ‘8·17’ incident is far more dangerous. From the moment I decided to investigate this case, I’ve been prepared to give my life for it at any time.”

“Zhou Jin!” His voice came out sharp and hard.

Between Jiang Hansheng’s dark brows there gathered an expression of unusual, intense severity — his face had gone cold in a way that was almost frightening. He was close to her, close enough that she could hear the weight and urgency of his breathing.

What was in his eyes was something between fury and fear, so concentrated it burned like a flame. Zhou Jin felt the heat of it catch her, and she went briefly still, uncertain and at a loss.

When he saw her expression, Jiang Hansheng seemed to suddenly realize he had lost his composure. He stood up abruptly, clenched his fists, and forced himself to hold everything back for a moment before managing to bring himself back to something resembling calm.

“I’m sorry, Zhou Jin.” His tone was flat, but the stiffness in it was still audible. “I think I need a moment.”