Cold sweat broke out across Qi Zhen’s forehead. She threatened them: “For Jian Liang’s sake, I am capable of anything — don’t think for a moment that I’m joking!”

Her bearing looked so fragile, and yet in this moment she had the courage to hold a knife against them.

There was something iron-hard and fierce in Qi Zhen’s very bones. That fierceness had made her resilient — resilient enough to sustain her through raising Qi Yan alone. But it had also made her capable of madness — the kind of madness that had led her to destroy everything without a second thought.

She had kept Qi Yan alive, and she had also strangled the life out of him.

Jiang Hansheng had long since considered the fact that when Qi Zhen chose to take her own life, she was not only abandoning herself — she was abandoning her son.

According to Yu Liang’s description, she had once treasured Qi Yan as dearly as her own eyes. What could possibly have driven her to harden her heart against him so completely?

Taking into account Qi Yan’s extreme fixation on and dependence upon his mother, Jiang Hansheng suspected it was likely the exposure of that raw, unguarded desire between them that Qi Zhen could not bear — the weight of that transgression too great — and so she had chosen to end her own life.

But within Qi Zhen’s incoherent outpouring of accusations, Jiang Hansheng had also caught another important thread — another reason she had attempted suicide.

She had seen in Qi Yan the side of him that took after his father.

That was precisely what Qi Zhen feared most. What she could not endure. By strangling Qi Yan with her own hands, she had been trying to strangle the half of his soul that belonged to his father.

Jiang Hansheng drew Zhou Jin behind him, his eyes heavy, and asked: “Tell me — who is Qi Yan’s father?”

“You don’t know?” Qi Zhen looked genuinely confused. She hesitated and asked, “You’re not his people?”

Zhou Jin tried to explain. “Qi Zhen, let me be clear once more — I am Zhou Jin, an investigator with the Haizhou City Major Crimes Unit.” With some difficulty, she fished her officer’s identification from her pocket and held it out. “A serial murder case has recently occurred in Haizhou. Your son, Qi Yan, is a key suspect in this case. We came to find Jian Liang to ask about the suicide case from back then — we only wanted to understand your situation. We hadn’t expected you to be alive, let alone to have become his wife.”

This was the abuse, abandonment, and betrayal that had come from a mother’s hands.

The physical and psychological damage Qi Zhen had inflicted on Qi Yan was the original driving force that had set him on the path toward committing the serial murders.

Qi Yan had killed multiple women in red dresses, one after another, staging each murder scene with an elaborate, ritual quality — all of it a means of returning himself, again and again, to the moment of Qi Zhen’s suicide.

Because only in that moment — the moment he lay in “Qi Zhen’s” arms — was “Qi Zhen” entirely his.

Beyond the Huaigang serial murder case, there was also the “8·17” gun robbery case five years prior, orchestrated by Qi Yan. Even after Zhou Chuan had been shot in the leg and rendered immobile, they had still fired that fatal shot into Zhou Chuan’s chest. That powerful killing impulse left no doubt about the hatred they harbored toward police as a group.

There were many possible causes for such a hatred of police. It was not until Jiang Hansheng saw that formal dress uniform hanging on the wall of Jian Liang’s home that he understood — the reason Qi Yan hated police might have originated with Jian Liang himself.

Zhou Jin had quickly arrived at the same connection amid the tense standoff. She thought of her brother Zhou Chuan. The scalded burn on her arm sharpened her emotions to a fine edge.

Zhou Jin said: “You’re willing to fight to the death — because we came to investigate your identity, you want to kill? Qi Zhen — who would you kill first, me or him?”

Tears streamed down Qi Zhen’s face. “I don’t want to hurt anyone! I only want you to leave this place and never come looking again. I want to live a quiet life. My husband and I are happy together — please let me go. Let me go. I truly know nothing.”

“Do you have any idea how many people your son has hurt?” Zhou Jin’s eyes reddened. “My brother was killed by him. And so many innocent people — all killed by him.”

Qi Zhen’s whole body suddenly began to shake violently. She said, in a hollow, lost voice: “So because he killed people, you’ve come here to drive me to my death? I already strangled him once, all those years ago. What more do you want from me? My life, to pay for his crimes — simply because I gave birth to him?”

The more she spoke, the more she unraveled. Then abruptly, her scattered eyes snapped back into focus. She brought the knife to her own throat and said, “If I die, will you stop coming after me? If I die, you won’t go after Jian Liang either — will you? Fine! Fine!”

“Qi Zhen!” Zhou Jin cried out.

She watched, horrified, as Qi Zhen — with absolute determination to die — drove the blade viciously toward her own throat.

Zhou Jin lunged to grab her. But Jiang Hansheng had seen it coming a moment sooner, and moved first — striding forward and closing his hand around the blade. The sharp edge slipped across the web of his hand between thumb and forefinger, instantly opening a gash. Blood welled up at once.

Jiang Hansheng wrested the knife away cleanly and threw it into the corner of the room.

It clattered sharply against the floor. With that sound, Qi Zhen pulled back from the very edge of collapse and chaos — back into a thread of clarity.

Her eyes were vacant as she watched the vivid red blood drip, one drop at a time, from the tips of his fingers.

Silence. Sustained silence.

Zhou Jin stared at his bleeding hand. Her mind felt as though it had been submerged beneath some immense and nameless terror, leaving her unable to react. The wound was not life-threatening — but there was something in her, some deep instinct, that recoiled from any harm coming to someone she held dear.

At that very moment, the sound of a key fumbling against the lock at the front door drifted through, and with a creak, the door swung open.

“Darling? Have Officer Zhou and the others arrived?”

Jian Liang.

Without a moment’s pause, Jiang Hansheng quickly pulled off his jacket, wiped clean the bloodstains from the floor and the knife, then wound his sleeve around his injured palm to cover the wound. He draped the jacket over his forearm.

Jiang Hansheng supported Zhou Jin at her back and said quietly, “Let’s go.”

Jian Liang called out several times before locating the kitchen. At the sight of the three of them crowded in there, he was somewhat taken aback. “Why is everyone squeezed in here?” Then he noticed the overturned pot on the floor. “What happened?”

Jiang Hansheng was shielding Qi Zhen — because Qi Zhen was not truly the perpetrator. And besides —

He looked at Jian Liang and Qi Zhen standing side by side, and thought: a happy family is never easily come by.

In how to handle this, he and Zhou Jin were of one mind without a word having been spoken. After a brief pause, Zhou Jin stepped in to smooth things over, saying: “I accidentally knocked over the pot just now and burned my arm. I’m all right, mostly — but I gave Mrs. Jian quite a fright.”

Jian Liang turned toward Qi Zhen with alarm. Her face was ashen, her body still trembling faintly — as though she had suffered an enormous psychological shock.

Jian Liang put his arm around her shoulders and rubbed her upper arm to soothe her, then apologized to them. “I’m sorry — my wife is easily frightened. Any little disturbance and she thinks something terrible has happened. I hope she didn’t alarm you.”

It was not that she was easily frightened. It was that her nerves were fragile.

Qi Zhen’s psychological state was deeply troubled. Pressing her further would only make the situation more unmanageable.

Jian Liang saw the severity of the redness on Zhou Jin’s arm and felt an overwhelming guilt. He said, “Officer Zhou, you really must get that seen to at a hospital. Let me drive you.”

Zhou Jin refused. “There’s no need. Mrs. Jian has had a shock — stay here with her. We can manage on our own.”

Jian Liang knew his wife’s mental state well. Others could recover from a fright easily enough, but her reactions to distress were unusually acute — she needed someone with her.

He dropped any further attempts at courtesy with Zhou Jin and Jiang Hansheng, repeatedly apologizing as he saw them to the door.

Jiang Hansheng supported Zhou Jin as they descended the stairs, settled her into the passenger seat, and got in himself.

Zhou Jin asked anxiously, “Your hand — how is it?”

Jiang Hansheng unwrapped his jacket. His palm was covered in blood. Fortunately the wound itself was not large, and the bleeding had already stopped.

Still, a wound split open and raw is always more alarming to look at. Zhou Jin stared at the blood, and tears spilled from her eyes with a rush of distress — only to be followed almost immediately by a watery laugh.

Jiang Hansheng looked at her, crying and laughing all at once, then glanced down at his own blood-soaked hand, and found it rather funny himself.

Zhou Jin leaned toward him and said quietly, “Jiang Hansheng — you really shouldn’t have married me. Look at all the wretched trouble that keeps finding us.”

Jiang Hansheng asked her, “Is your arm hurting?”

Zhou Jin nodded. “It is. Fortunately there are no blisters — nothing too serious.” She tipped her chin toward the wound on his hand and asked, “And you?”

Jiang Hansheng smiled slightly. “Hurts as well.”

Zhou Jin reached out and hooked her hand around the back of his neck, her voice carrying both reproach and warning. “You knew it would hurt and you still grabbed the blade. Quite bold of you, aren’t you?”

The two of them were face to face, eyes locked, close enough that their foreheads nearly touched.

Jiang Hansheng said, “If I didn’t do it, you would have. In a situation like that, it’s better for it to be the man.”

Zhou Jin gave a mock scoff and said, “I’m a police officer. Protecting the lives and property of others is my job. You’re just a teacher.”

Jiang Hansheng answered earnestly, “But I’m also Zhou Jin’s husband.”

Zhou Jin: “……”

Her face went warm and flushed. She found herself no match for Jiang Hansheng’s brand of transparent, wholehearted sincerity, and quickly sat back up straight.

Jiang Hansheng located the address of a nearby hospital and started the car.

Zhou Jin’s emotions gradually settled out of their earlier chaos. She let out a sigh and said, “I never expected Qi Zhen to still be alive. Qi Yan has killed so many people — and yet he never harmed Qi Zhen. He never harmed that police officer Jian Liang, either.”

Qi Yan had known Jian Liang’s identity from early on. With his capabilities, tracking down the addresses of these two people would not have been difficult.

If he had truly intended to kill them, Qi Zhen and Jian Liang would not have lived safely to this day.

Yet they were alive. They had lived through all these years in peace.

Jiang Hansheng said, “Perhaps it is precisely because Qi Yan couldn’t bring himself to act against Qi Zhen that he needed substitutes to vent his hatred and resentment. The women who were killed were substitutes. Commissioner Yao, Cang Feng, and back then — Li Jingbo and Zhou Chuan, who lost their lives — all of them were substitutes.”

Zhou Jin curled her fingers inward, and the gaze she fixed on the road ahead grew complicated.

The off-road vehicle came to a slow stop.

Qi Yan removed his sunglasses and looked toward the iron gate ahead, painted a deep crimson red. A wide grin spread across his face.

The driver in the front seat said: “We’re here.”

Qi Yan pushed open the door, let out a lazy, drawn-out whistle, then patted the car door and said, “All right — untie our new friend.”

The person who had been sitting behind the driver’s seat, riding alongside Qi Yan the entire way, was none other than Jiang Cheng.

The driver turned around and reached over to pull the black cloth from Jiang Cheng’s eyes.

The stark white daylight stabbed at him, and he couldn’t open his eyes for a moment. It took a little while before he adjusted to the brightness.

He got out of the car and walked over to stand beside Qi Yan.

Qi Yan said with a grin, “Yao Weihai and that A’Feng — you were clean about it. Since He Wu and Uncle Qi vouched for you, I ought to give a capable brother a chance. Your marksmanship is solid — want to compare sometime?”

Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes slightly and looked toward the gate ahead. “Sure.”

“Welcome to the fold, Jiang Cheng.”

Qi Yan raised his arm and draped it around Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, giving it a pat. “You’ve always wanted to meet Old Scorpion, haven’t you? I am Old Scorpion.”