Xiong Hei’s car sped out of the villa.
Yan Tuo sat in the passenger seat. After they got onto the main road, he asked Xiong Hei, “What’s the urgent matter?”
Xiong Hei kept his eyes on the road, focused on driving: “Just that mess with Ban Ya. We’ve been keeping Jiang Baichuan and his people for some time now—we can’t keep them forever.”
Something stirred in Yan Tuo’s mind.
Earlier at the farm, when he’d discussed Jiang Baichuan with Xiong Hei, the latter had let something slip—after saying “Sister Lin’s son,” he’d refused to say another word.
Yan Tuo casually asked, “Planning to exchange people?”
Xiong Hei responded without thinking, making an affirmative sound.
“Exchange for Aunt Lin’s son?”
Xiong Hei was about to grunt in agreement when he suddenly realized and startled: “How do you know?”
“You let it slip last time, and told me not to tell Aunt Lin, remember?”
Was that right? Xiong Hei couldn’t quite remember, but with Feng Mi in the back seat, he felt somewhat embarrassed and tried to gloss it over.
But Feng Mi wasn’t easily fooled: “Brother Xiong, you’re not good at keeping secrets.”
Xiong Hei said awkwardly: “Yan Tuo is… one of us.”
Since they’d gotten to this point anyway, Yan Tuo turned slightly to look at Feng Mi in the back seat: “Aunt Lin’s son—how old is he? Is he handsome?”
Xiong Hei responded irritably: “What’s it to you whether he’s handsome or not?”
Yan Tuo smiled: “I’m asking for Feng Mi.”
Feng Mi snorted: “I don’t know how old he is, but he’s not handsome. Don’t ask for me—it has nothing to do with me.”
Yan Tuo maintained his casual demeanor: “How did Aunt Lin’s son end up with Ban Ya’s people? Was he kidnapped like me?”
Feng Mi remained silent. Xiong Hei cleared his throat: “Enough, Yan Tuo. It’s none of your business—stop asking questions.”
Yan Tuo turned back, staring ahead: “Who doesn’t have curiosity? Telling half and hiding half—can’t stand how stingy you are with information.”
The car fell silent for a while. Xiong Hei glanced at Yan Tuo, several times wanting to ask something but swallowing his words.
He’d better not meddle—just follow Sister Lin’s instructions.
Yan Tuo didn’t speak again either, turning his head to watch the city’s night scenery through the window.
Xi’an, as a city, had always felt foreign to him.
Although his household registration showed “Xi’an,” he’d spent his childhood in Tang County. After that came a complete relocation, and only then did they move to Xi’an. The advantage of big cities is that no matter how close people live to each other, the distance between them remains far—in the same community, even next-door neighbors might live there for three to five years and remain strangers.
Lin Xirou must like such places: move once, shed a skin—after several times, she could be reborn.
In his view, the street scenes kept changing, sometimes new, sometimes ancient, and sometimes decrepit.
…
Xiong Hei received a phone call. After listening for a while, he said “Okay.”
Then he turned the car around.
The car made a wide turn. Yan Tuo asked curiously: “What’s wrong?”
Xiong Hei didn’t look at him: “Taking you somewhere—you probably don’t know we have such a hideout in the city.”
He raised his voice: “Feng Mi, do you know about it?”
Feng Mi’s voice was lazy: “I know now, just take me there.”
***
Another hideout?
Yan Tuo took out his phone to check the location.
He’d never been here before—it was in the western suburbs, originally an old industrial area packed with factories surrounded by workers’ residential buildings. As the city developed, many residents moved to better neighborhoods, leaving these buildings gradually vacant, awaiting demolition and renovation.
The renovation seemed to be slowly progressing now. Yan Tuo noticed many walls marked with white chalk circles containing large characters for “demolish.”
After numerous turns, the car finally stopped in front of an apartment building. Xiong Hei bent down to undo his seatbelt: “First floor, the unit at the very end.”
Yan Tuo got out and looked up at the building. It was extremely old, with walls so weathered that the plaster was peeling. Electric wires crawled like snakes from one window to another. If not for one or two units still having lights on, he would have thought it was an abandoned building.
He felt like he’d traveled back to the 80s or 90s—no, the 60s or 70s.
Why bring someone here for an exchange? Had Jiang Baichuan and the others been moved here from the farm?
Xiong Hei beckoned Yan Tuo into the hallway, with Feng Mi lazily following behind.
The hallway light was broken. Xiong Hei lit up his phone’s flashlight. The deeper they went, the stronger the years-old musty smell became. Yan Tuo saw rusty bicycles lying askew on the ground, and broken pickle jars whose leaked juices had long dried, leaving large white stains on the floor.
The door at the very end had white funeral couplets pasted on it.
—One illness parts from earth and homeland, the whole family weeps for their lost kin.
The couplets were also aged, corners curling up, appearing especially eerie in the phone’s light.
Yan Tuo sensed something was wrong and instinctively stopped: “Wait, this place…”
Before he could finish, he felt a gun barrel press hard against his lower back, and Feng Mi’s sighing voice came from behind: “Yan Tuo, Aunt Lin’s instructions were that if you resist, I can shoot—so please cooperate. My heart might be unwilling, but my hands might not be.”
Yan Tuo’s scalp tingled, but he quickly recovered, forcing calm as he smiled at Xiong Hei: “Brother Xiong, isn’t there some misunderstanding?”
Xiong Hei took out keys to open the door, avoiding the question: “This is where we do our dirty work. Last time we dealt with someone who was causing trouble—damn bastard couldn’t take a beating, died after just a few punches and kicks.”
He pushed open the door and turned on the light.
With a gun at his back, Yan Tuo had no choice but to step inside.
It was a nearly empty room with just a broken sofa and a few chairs. The corner was piled high with dirty disposable food containers and snack bags. A panicked rat, startled by the noise, twisted its tail and squeaked as it darted away.
The floor was cement, with a white chalk circle drawn in the center showing burn marks. Several pieces of half-burnt spirit money were scattered inside the circle.
Besides this, something else felt wrong about this room…
After a few seconds, Yan Tuo realized.
This room had no windows.
All places where windows should have been had been bricked up and plastered over.
Xiong Hei instructed him: “You, walk forward, don’t stay so close to us. Yes, keep going.”
Yan Tuo walked to the center of the room, carefully avoiding the circle of burnt paper, and then turned around.
Feng Mi leaned against the door in a relaxed pose, but the dark barrel of her gun remained pointed at him. Xiong Hei stood with arms crossed, his gaze uncertain.
Yan Tuo’s heart was racing, but his face remained amused: “Brother Xiong, what’s this all about…”
Xiong Hei cut him off: “Whether there’s a misunderstanding or not, you know in your heart—I certainly don’t know. If there’s no problem, you don’t need to be nervous, just treat it as a casual visit—Sister Lin says you don’t need to go back, so I had to invite you here. As for what exactly this is about, wait until she arrives and sort it out yourselves. However, you’ll have to put up with some discomfort—people who come in can’t remain so free to move around.”
As he spoke, he bent down, opened the shoe cabinet, and took out a bundle of solid plastic rope.
Yan Tuo smiled: “Isn’t this too much, Brother Xiong? Rather dramatic.”
Xiong Hei didn’t smile: “It’s necessary.”
After staring at each other for a moment, Yan Tuo conceded, his tone still light: “Do you have tape? This kind of rope hurts when it digs into the flesh.”
Xiong Hei laughed: “Being picky, are we? Yes, we do. Don’t make this difficult for me, and I’ll try not to make you suffer.”
He threw the plastic rope back into the cabinet and took out a roll of tape instead.
Yan Tuo’s throat felt dry: “Can I use the bathroom first? It’ll be troublesome to need it after being tied up.”
Xiong Hei gestured toward the bathroom: “Go ahead.”
Then he instructed Feng Mi: “You, just stand by the door, don’t get too close to him. You’ve seen in movies how people always make unexpected moves—so annoying. But Yan Tuo is one of us, if there’s really no problem, he’ll cooperate.”
Yan Tuo gave a bitter laugh, raising his hands in surrender: “What game are you all playing tonight?”
With that, he walked toward the bathroom. Xiong Hei watched him sideways, showing no intention of following.
The bathroom was filthy too, with just a sink and toilet, not even a trash bin.
Yan Tuo had no time to care about the filth. He first took out the phone with the special number.
No signal.
He checked his phone—also no signal.
No wonder they were so confident in letting him use the bathroom alone.
Sweat beaded on Yan Tuo’s forehead as he quickly removed the SIM card from the special phone and threw it into the toilet, then tucked the phone itself into his pants. He then took out his personal phone.
He hesitated for a moment before uninstalling the “burn after reading” app.
Better delete it.
If he escaped, he remembered the location of that small courtyard. If he didn’t… well, better delete everything cleanly now, pretend he’d never seen it.
After deleting it, he quickly removed the phone case.
Inside was a needle—given to him by Nie Jiuluo.
Originally, he’d planned to use it against Dog Ya, but Dog Ya had died too quickly for him to need it.
At least it was a sharp weapon. Yan Tuo carefully slipped the needle into his sleeve, then reconsidered, worried it might slip out, and instead inserted it diagonally into the inner side of the sleeve.
***
Coming out of the bathroom, Xiong Hei gestured to the empty floor: “Face down, lie on the ground. Feet together, hands behind your back.”
Yan Tuo glanced at the floor: “Isn’t this a bit too dirty?”
Xiong Hei gave a mirthless smile: “Yan Tuo, you’re worried about that at a time like this? If you’re guilty, cleaning the floor with your life wouldn’t be too much. If this turns out to be a misunderstanding, I’ll pay for your bathhouse visits for the next ten years, how’s that?”
With no choice, Yan Tuo lay down as instructed.
Xiong Hei ripped off a long strip of tape with a sharp sound and strode over. As he knelt, he instructed Feng Mi: “If Yan Tuo tries anything with me, don’t interfere—just stay there. If I win, fine. If I can’t subdue him right away, don’t go soft—just shoot straight away. I won’t die anyway—after a few months of rest, I’ll still be your Brother Xiong.”
Feng Mi remained languid: “I understand. I can’t believe two people could mess this up.”
Yan Tuo struggled internally: Xiong Hei would be difficult to deal with, and even if he could suddenly overpower him, he couldn’t dodge bullets.
He didn’t want to die yet.
He remained silent, letting Xiong Hei bind his hands and feet.
After finishing, Xiong Hei sighed in relief, patted Yan Tuo’s pockets on both sides, took his phone, then grabbed his arm and half-dragged him up, dropping him onto a chair.
The special phone had been in his pants and had slid down into his pant leg during the movement, but since his legs were bound together, he could control its descent.
Yan Tuo exhaled, trying to shake loose the needle, but due to the sleeve’s friction or the tape being too tight, even though he knew it was right there, so close yet so far, he couldn’t reach it.
The more anxious he became, the more helpless he felt. Yan Tuo broke out in a cold sweat and then decided to shift his focus to other matters.
He looked up at Xiong Hei: “Brother Xiong, everything was fine at dinner, how did it suddenly turn into this? What exactly did I do to offend you all? Can you give me a straight answer?”
***
Xiong Hei was also confused.
In the farm’s surveillance footage, there was a clip of Yan Tuo standing guard outside while Dog Ya was being interrogated, but that proved nothing—during that period, Yan Tuo had been desperate to join their ranks, maybe he was just curious.
Later, in the video from the outskirts of Shihe County, Yan Tuo was spotted driving Lu Xian’s car near where Chen Fu and the others disappeared—but Xiong Hei honestly couldn’t condemn someone based on just that. He’d traced Yan Tuo’s movements that day; he’d left and entered the next county, then turned back—that was the opposite direction. Besides, with how bullet-ridden the pump house had become, if Yan Tuo had been there, wouldn’t he have been turned into a sieve?
So, according to his reasoning, the key must be what Sister Lin had said at dinner.
—”There is something—we just haven’t found it yet.”
What could be so damning? Had Yan Tuo hidden Chen Fu’s head in his room?
Xiong Hei wondered aloud: “What exactly did you have in your room?”
Yan Tuo stared at him for a long while, then slowly leaned back in his chair.
He said: “What could I possibly have in my room?”
***
Lin Xirou arrived in the late night hours.
By then, Yan Tuo had been dozing with his head lowered. Hearing movement in the hallway, he immediately opened his eyes and quietly moved his legs.
The special phone slid from his calf to his ankle and then fell to the ground. Yan Tuo stepped on it, and while Xiong Hei and Feng Mi were opening the door to greet their visitor, he used his foot to push the phone into the pile of garbage in the corner.
Even if the phone was discovered later, it wouldn’t be traced to him—he only had one phone on him, which Xiong Hei had already taken.
When Lin Xirou entered, she was holding a brick-red notebook.
Yan Tuo shifted slightly against the tape and called out: “Aunt Lin.”
He tried hard not to look at the diary.
Lin Xirou watched him for a while, then threw the diary at his feet: “What is this?”
Yan Tuo looked down, and after a while said: “My mother’s diary.”
“Who gave it to you?”
Yan Tuo hesitated: “My father. Aunt Lin, don’t you remember? When my father was on his deathbed, I was the only one home—you had taken Lin Ling out for vaccinations. He had a moment of clarity and told me my mother had left this diary, told me to keep it.”
“Why did you hide it?”
Yan Tuo raised his head, looking at Lin Xirou for a moment, then at Xiong Hei and Feng Mi, as if seeking everyone’s opinion.
He said: “My mother might as well have been dead while alive, and my father died early. Is it wrong for someone to keep their parents’ belongings?”
Lin Xirou was stunned by his question.
After a while, she recovered: “So, you’ve long known about what happened in your parents’ generation?”
Yan Tuo smiled: “Any normal person, even if they don’t remember their childhood, would want to know what happened to their parents when they grew up. Aunt Lin, if I told you I was never curious, never thought about it or investigated, would you believe me?”
Lin Xirou’s face was expressionless, but her lips had turned slightly pale. She asked him, word by word: “Now that you know everything, do you hate me?”
Yan Tuo countered: “Aunt Lin, have you read my mother’s diary? In the diary, you never harmed her—she was the one who tried to kill you.”
After a pause, he added: “Twice.”