An abandoned dock, sunk in darkness. Only the faint nearby light cut through the night, casting a pale, diffused glow.
Jiang Cheng gripped a small flashlight with his hand turned backward, pointing the beam at the path ahead.
Pitch black on all sides — utterly desolate. The salt-heavy dampness in the wind had grown thicker, and the sound of the sea carried from far away.
Then, without warning, a sharp white light blinked twice in front of him. Jiang Cheng raised his flashlight in a single motion and pinpointed the source with precision.
As the beam swept past, he made out a tall, lean silhouette standing not far ahead.
Jiang Cheng quickly confirmed the other person’s identity, switched off the flashlight, and walked toward him.
“You made it?”
The man had a voice that carried age — unhurried, slightly worn. His whole figure was absorbed into the darkness: a spare frame, ramrod straight.
“Old Yao,” Jiang Cheng said.
The man stepped forward. He wore glasses, and the gaze behind the lenses was somewhat shadowed. Though his temples had gone silver, his bearing remained sharp and vigorous — compared to the younger Jiang Cheng, his manner carried a deeper, more settled gravity.
This was Yao Weihai — former head of the “8·17” special task force, and Jiang Cheng’s superior.
Or to put it more precisely: Jiang Cheng was the undercover informant Yao Weihai had carefully planned and placed at He Wu’s side.
Before Jiang Cheng could say a word, Yao Weihai pressed first. “What happened with Lai San’er’s case?”
Jiang Cheng lifted his slightly weary eyelids, his answer unhurried. “He killed someone. I used the police to take him down.”
Yao Weihai’s brow creased faintly. “Why no advance report?”
“It happened fast — no time. When Lai San’er committed the murder, Huang Song was right there with him. Huang Song called me, asking what to do. I knew Lai San’er was likely to run, so I had Huang Song keep him in place, then turn around and testify against him in front of the police.”
Yao Weihai said, “Lai San’er won’t be going anywhere now — but Huang Song is going to prison alongside him.”
His eyes sharpened. “Jiang Cheng — know your limits.”
Jiang Cheng’s brow drew together. The pain in his body — dulling toward numbness — reminded him once again: Jiang Hansheng had stood before him in much the same way, from some clean and elevated ground, making his accusation —
“Jiang Cheng, he’s still just a student whose mind hasn’t fully matured.”
Jiang Cheng cursed under his breath without a sound.
Yao Weihai noticed the way his hand rested over his midsection, and something seemed to occur to him. His expression shifted.
“A’Cheng,” he said.
A moment of silence. Then Jiang Cheng finally relented and explained, “Huang Song was stealing and selling drugs to pay for his mother’s medical treatment. He broke the underworld’s code — staying out here, sooner or later they’d take his hands or his legs. Prison is actually where he survives.”
In the faint, thin light, shadows fell across Jiang Cheng’s sharp brow bone and the bridge of his nose. When the aggression left his bearing, there was a kind of clean-cut, forthright handsomeness to him.
“I’m handing the kid over to you,” he said. “Look after him properly.”
Yao Weihai gave a quiet laugh and agreed. “Don’t worry.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t belabor the case further. He moved straight to his report. “They’re planning a shipment soon — a metric ton of ice coming in along the Jinhai route. Time and location still to be confirmed.”
“A ton?” The man’s expression shifted immediately into something grave. “A transaction that size — can they actually absorb it?”
Jiang Cheng nodded. “For major transactions, He Wu usually takes the lead, and ‘Old Scorpion’ comes in person to oversee. He Wu will need backup — with Lai San’er gone, I can position myself to be the one he turns to.”
Silence settled between them for a moment. No one watching could have known how much effort and sacrifice lay behind those few plain sentences.
At last, Yao Weihai exhaled a long, slow breath. “Five years. Nearly five years — and only now do we truly have this trade route in our hands.”
The Jinhai route was the trafficking chain headed by “Old Scorpion” — a network that encompassed everything from the upstream supply all the way down to the downstream markets. Drugs moved along it. Weapons too. Even human trafficking. It operated concealed beneath the most ordinary-looking commercial transactions, and it could not be ruled out that high-ranking figures in government were providing cover from behind the scenes.
If not for the “8·17” case all those years ago, they might never have known that such a network existed within Haizhou at all.
“Old Scorpion has been hiding in the shadows for so long,” Yao Weihai said. “This is the first real sign of movement.”
Jiang Cheng lit a cigarette. “This is our only chance. When it’s done — I’m going home.”
“Are you certain you can get He Wu’s trust?” Yao Weihai asked carefully. “Lai San’er going down at exactly this moment — He Wu is bound to have his suspicions.”
Jiang Cheng let the cigarette burn down past halfway, then dropped it to the ground and ground it out hard beneath his heel. “Don’t worry about that. I have my ways.”
His tone carried no particular deference.
Yao Weihai caught the wrongness in him. “What’s going on with you today? I’ve never seen you like this.”
The remark struck something in Jiang Cheng’s carefully suppressed emotions, and they flared. He pressed his thin, cool lips together. In that moment, he went very still — a stillness that was, in its way, more unnerving than fury.
“Zhou Jin’s marriage — why didn’t you tell me?”
In the darkness, Yao Weihai’s silhouette visibly stiffened.
Jiang Cheng had a sharp nose for things. His voice dropped. “You knew.”
Then a bitter laugh broke from him. He bit down on a cigarette, and his hands were shaking as he tried to light it — took several attempts before the flame caught.
He drew hard on it. The tobacco filled his chest and turned over and over inside him, numbing his senses, numbing his heart, numbing his nerves.
Yao Weihai spoke with difficulty. “It only happened recently. I only just received word myself.”
“Old Yao — look at this.” Jiang Cheng grabbed the hem of his shirt with one hand and pulled it up, baring his lean, muscled abdomen.
The night was too dark — Yao Weihai couldn’t see clearly. But he didn’t need to see. He already knew: just below Jiang Cheng’s ribcage was a scar the size of a coin. A bullet wound.
Jiang Cheng tilted his chin upward, the line of his neck rigid and unbowing. He spoke through clenched teeth. “During the last transaction, I took a bullet from one of our own. I nearly died on the operating table before I made it back to this place.”
Silence.
“I grew up without parents. Outside of Zhou Jin, there is not a single person in this world who truly cares whether I live or die. When the King of Hell was already reaching out to drag me under — the only thing that pulled me back was thinking of Zhou Jin still waiting for me. I couldn’t even let myself die. I bit down and held on.”
“A’Cheng.”
Yao Weihai’s heart ached — but unlike Jiang Cheng, who was near the edge of collapse, he kept himself composed, trying to reason with him. “I know how hard it’s been for you. But you’re not some seventeen-year-old kid anymore. We’re at the most critical phase of closing the net. You can’t let five years of planning fall apart over one Zhou Jin—”
“It’s because of Zhou Jin!” Jiang Cheng cut him off, his voice sharp as a blade. “I took this assignment because of Zhou Jin.”
“You said it yourself — if a man wants to see something through, he needs something to believe in. Zhou Jin is what I believe in.”
When Jiang Cheng had first agreed to go undercover, Yao Weihai had given him only two requirements: first, hold fast to your conviction; second, come back alive.
The Jiang Cheng of that time had been so certain of himself — composed and luminous, full of life. When he accepted the mission, he had said only one thing —
“I will. I can’t watch Xiao Wu cry again.”
The Jiang Cheng standing here now had eyes so bloodshot they were frightening — a world away from the man he’d been. All the bravado, all the pride he’d ever carried — in this moment, it all gave way at once.
He couldn’t hold it back any longer. Grievance and rage burned through him like wildfire. Five years’ worth of emotion, suppressed to the very bottom of himself, exploded outward all at once.
“To hell with the gun seizure operation! To hell with going undercover! To hell with all of it! To HELL—”
The murderous fury in Jiang Cheng’s eyes surged upward. He clenched his fists and drove them into the shipping container beside him, again and again — the blows punched through the night, the booming crashes echoing out into the dark.
“Jiang Cheng! Jiang Cheng!” Yao Weihai seized him by the collar, shouting with full force. “What the hell is wrong with you?! Don’t you forget — before Zhou Jin, you are a police officer!”
Jiang Cheng heaved for air, his whole body so saturated with pain it had gone numb. In that instant, every sense abandoned him. Only the ringing in his ears remained — and beneath the roar of it, something else. A different sound, suddenly cutting through.
Yao Weihai heard it too, fast on the alert.
“Who’s there!”