Volume Two: Second Scroll
Cherishing the Memory
“My wife.”
After the people left, Liu Zhi looked at Wang Qiang lying on the ground and said: “Hong-jie, what should we do with this?”
Lin Yan’s fingers gathered at her brow: “In any case, we were a loving couple for a time. Find a good place and bury him properly.”
“Yes.” A few strong and sturdy henchmen wearing gloves came in and dragged Wang Qiang out. The remaining few people brought in buckets of water and began to scrub the bloodstains on the floor.
Liu Zhi threw the blood-stained carpet into the fire, handing it over to a single torch1.
Lin Yan sat in the car, her fingers unconsciously tapping her knee as she calculated what to do next.
Wang Qiang was dead. This news had to be sent back as soon as possible. Now, her position at the Huange Nightclub was unshakable, bringing her one step closer to the core leadership of this mysterious organization.
The next step was to find the source of the goods. Behind such a huge quantity of new-type drugs, there must be an incomparably enormous production factory hidden. If this factory wasn’t rooted out, investigating any number of shipments would be useless.
“Hong-jie, it’s all taken care of.” Liu Zhi knocked on the car door and ran over to report.
Lin Yan returned to her senses. Seeing his forehead covered in sweat, she smiled slightly and handed him her handkerchief.
“Here, wipe it off.”
Working for Wang Qiang, how could there be such treatment of inquiring about cold and asking about warmth2?
Liu Zhi hesitated. Seeing that she kept her hand extended, he felt it would be improper not to take it. That wrist was fair and slender.
His heart warmed. He pinched the corner of the handkerchief to take it, wiped his sweat perfunctorily, and smelled a pleasant fragrance on the handkerchief. His face turned slightly red.
“Thank you, Hong-jie.”
Lin Yan closed her eyes again to rest. Liu Zhi sat in the front passenger seat, told the driver to drive, then turned his head and asked in a low voice.
“Hong-jie, that shipment of goods…”
Lin Yan didn’t open her eyes: “Give it back to Tiger.”
A little impatience will spoil a great plan3. It seems this Ding Ye is even more difficult to deal with than she had imagined.
Liu Zhi was taken aback: “Yes.”
After returning to the Huange Nightclub and locking the door, Lin Yan leaned against the door panel and slid down to sit, her hand propping up her forehead. The events of this night left her feeling utterly exhausted.
Whether it was maneuvering among ruthless drug traffickers, feigning and pretending compliance with Wang Qiang, or facing life and death directly, none of it drained her spirit more than meeting Song Yuhang again.
When she said she was “Pei Jinhong,” the shock and pain that flashed through Song Yuhang’s eyes did not escape her own.
Her lover was clearly right beside her, yet they could not acknowledge or embrace each other. Her heart-piercing pain, she also felt as if she were experiencing it herself.
Lin Yan clenched her jaw, telling herself not to cry, that she couldn’t cry, yet her eyes still grew hot. She bit her arm, and a whimper escaped from the depths of her throat.
After a long time, the wail, as faint as that of a young beast, stopped.
Lin Yan got up, poured a glass of red wine from the cabinet, and pressed a hidden compartment next to the bedside table, from which a wooden box popped out.
She took out a few white pills from inside and threw them into the wine. Bubbles rose from the rim of the glass and quickly vanished without a trace.
Lin Yan picked it up, swirled it twice, and drank it all in one go. Just as she was about to get up to take a shower, she inexplicably felt that something was not right.
She sat up from the bed. The bed was still the same as when she had left. The pillow was placed properly, and the four corners of the quilt were without a single wrinkle.
Lin Yan turned on the table lamp, lifted the quilt, and searched inch by inch. Her fingers finally grasped something fine and soft. Bringing it under the lamp to look, she saw it was a short black hair.
She was here.
For a moment, Lin Yan’s emotions surged. Her eyes reddened again. She clutched the hair, unmoving, her lips trembling.
How she wanted to rush out and find her, to tell her that she was still alive, to hug her and kiss her again, to draw a trace of warmth from her. This place is truly too cold. I have to have my heart in my throat4 at all times, living as if treading on thin ice.
She couldn’t sleep peacefully for a single night. Even on summer nights, she would break out in a cold sweat and be woken up by her own chill.
The doctor said this was a normal stress reaction after major surgery, but only she herself knew that she was just suffering from a lovesickness named “Song Yuhang.”
After returning the mechanical baton to her, she no longer had anything of hers by her side, not even something to use for cherishing her memory.
Lin Yan struggled again and again, but in the end, chose to take out a lighter and burn the strand of hair.
The rampaging tongue of fire also devoured her fingers. In this process, which was like a Nirvana5, Lin Yan felt a heart-piercing pain, and two streams of clear tears finally rolled from the corners of her eyes.
The rain fell all night, and she did not sleep at all. The next morning, she notified people to come and help her move. Originally, Pei Jinhong lived nearby only for the convenience of managing the club, but now that Wang Qiang was dead, everyone just assumed she was moved by the scene to recall past sorrows6. Moving was reasonable and logical, and did not arouse suspicion.
Lin Yan, however, was calculating. Firstly, Song Yuhang already knew about that place. It was inevitable that she would come looking for her, so it might not be safe.
Secondly, the nightclub was full of people and prying eyes. Living outside would make it easier to pass on information. As for the goings-on in the nightclub, Liu Zhi would naturally help her keep an eye on them.
The house she was moving to now was also a private property under Pei Jinhong’s name, a duplex apartment in a high-end residential complex in Jiangcheng City, with 24-hour security and surveillance cameras in the elevators and corridors.
Lin Yan was very satisfied. Standing in the corridor watching her men busy themselves moving in and out, she thought: This human trafficker’s taste isn’t too bad.
“Hong-jie, it’s all tidied up.” Liu Zhi wiped the sweat with his sleeve as he walked out.
“See if there’s anything else that needs to be added, and we’ll get it.”
“You’ve worked hard.” Lin Yan pulled a few red bills7 out of her wallet, holding them between two fingers and handing them to him.
“Treat the brothers to a good meal.”
The others also chuckled: “Hong-jie is still the one who’s good to us.”
The two floors of the apartment added up to about two hundred square meters. It was a bit smaller than her previous villa, but it was barely livable.
Lin Yan looked around and picked up a photo frame that was placed face down on the table next to the TV cabinet. Inside was an old black-and-white photo with a corner torn off, leaving only a little girl who, by her appearance, looked like Pei Jinhong.
For some reason, she always felt that this photo was a bit familiar.
Lin Yan frowned.
Liu Zhi’s words interrupted her train of thought.
“Hong-jie, everything is tidied up, so we’ll be leaving now.”
He said he was leaving, but he stood there without moving. The others had disappeared, probably sent away by him.
Lin Yan sneered inwardly and put down the photo frame.
“Alright, go back and rest.”
Liu Zhi didn’t move. Instead, he took a step forward, his expression rather eager: “Hong-jie, Wang-ge is dead, I…”
Lin Yan looked up at him, her smile hiding a sharp edge.
“Then I am still your saozi.”
“No, I want…” Looking at her face, her wearing a slip dress, her bare, snow-white shoulders exposed, Liu Zhi swallowed and moved closer to her, his hand landing on her shoulder.
“You know what I mean. I will be even better to you than Wang-ge.”
Watching his hand gently pull down her shoulder strap, Lin Yan remained impassive, still smiling at him.
But just as Liu Zhi wanted to make a further move, a small knife was pressed against the tip of his heart.
Lin Yan’s bright red fingernails caressed his chest as she said softly.
“I let you call me saozi because I saw you as a younger brother. I didn’t expect you to be as sordid as your brother. I was blind8.”
By the end of her words, her tone had become increasingly cold. The tip of the knife went in an inch. Cold sweat beaded on Liu Zhi’s head, and his face turned pale.
“I think you might have forgotten. I’m not just your saozi, I’m also Hong-jie, the ruthless ‘Golden Pheasant,’ don’t take my kindness to you as a reason to get an inch and advance a foot9, think about your Wang-ge—”
Lin Yan gave a charming smile and buttoned up his shirt for him.
“—how he died.”
Liu Zhi was not an idiot, just muddle-headed from a rush of blood. Lin Yan’s warning was pointed just enough to make its mark10. This person was still useful.
After she retracted the knife, Liu Zhi also took a step back, panting, looking at her in disbelief.
Lin Yan pulled out a tissue for him: “Don’t be so surprised. Anyone will always change after dying once.”
“You…” Liu Zhi gritted his teeth, wanting to say more.
Lin Yan cut him off: “By the way, you haven’t been home for several years, have you? There’s not much going on recently. I’ll give you a vacation. Go back to your hometown and see your parents.”
Liu Zhi’s pupils shrank: “You, how could you…”
…know that he has parents? Ever since I started working for Wang Qiang, in order not to implicate my family, I’ve told everyone I’m an orphan.
How would she know? Naturally, it was from police intelligence.
Lin Yan gave a smile that didn’t reach her eyes and gave him a perfunctory supporting gesture.
“I see you as a younger brother, so your parents are naturally my aunt and uncle. If I can look after them, I should.”
She stuffed a bank card into his hand.
“Following Wang Qiang, those scraps of meat weren’t even enough to fill the gaps between your teeth, were they? It’s different now. Ten percent of the transaction value is not a small sum. Work hard, and you won’t be short of money or goods.”
These words from Lin Yan, a mix of threatening with force and enticing with benefits, sent a chill through his entire body.
Liu Zhi clutched the card, feeling as if he were sitting on a needle carpet11.
“What do you want? Don’t touch my parents.”
“That’s natural. Your sister, me, is not so thin-feeling and scant-on-righteousness12.”
Lin Yan said, sitting down on the sofa and reaching for a cigarette.
“As for what I want…”
She gave a charming smile and clicked the lighter on.
“You guess.”
Song Yuhang had been staking out the area near the Huange Nightclub for several days, but hadn’t seen Pei Jinhong again.
She didn’t want to do something as abrupt and unfair to Lin Yan as climbing the wall for a night meeting again, but there were still unresolved doubts in her heart. She had used the card Zheng Chengrui had copied for her to slip in a few times but hadn’t been able to run into her again.
Asking the staff, they all said they didn’t know, and asking further risked exposing herself.
Song Yuhang had no choice but to give up. On this day, after getting off work, she was pondering going in one more time to see if she could find any clues when her phone rang.
She answered it, and her expression instantly turned cold. The windshield wipers scraped against the car glass. Song Yuhang gently stepped on the accelerator.
“Okay, I understand. I’ll be there right away.”
A murder case.
The organization had assigned her to go take a look.
A reporter, holding an umbrella and wearing a raincoat, shouted hoarsely at the camera: “The crime scene is at an abandoned construction site in the suburbs. Due to continuous heavy rain, the surface layer of the soil was washed away and became soft, which exposed the body buried underneath. If your family has a missing person who has not returned recently, or if you have other clues to solve the case, please contact the police in a timely manner.”
Song Yuhang lifted the police tape and put on white gloves.
The technical investigation team was already busy. She looked over and saw a forensic examiner in a white protective suit squatting next to the body.
Song Yuhang was slightly taken aback and was lost in thought for a moment, until the other person turned their face. It was an unfamiliar person, probably a newcomer.
Xue Rui walked over, a bitter smile on his lips, still using the old form of address: “Captain Song, you’re here. Please point out the maze for us.”
Song Yuhang walked over: “Call me what you’re supposed to call me. This isn’t appropriate.”
He was taken aback. Song Yuhang had already squatted down to examine the body.
“When was it discovered?”
Duan Cheng was clearly a bit excited to see her and rushed to answer while holding his camera: “Four in the afternoon. The people from the local police station are taking statements.”
The witness was a nearby resident who had come to the construction site to collect steel bars.
Song Yuhang briefly familiarized herself with the case and glanced at the body again.
Too tragic to bear looking at.
The entire body was burned black, like a piece of charcoal, its features completely changed. It was impossible to even tell if it was male or female.
Faced with such a body, even an experienced forensic examiner would have their hands tied with no plan.
“Forget it, forget it. The rain is too heavy. Let’s take it back for an autopsy.”
Several people worked together to put the person into a body bag.
This heavy rain had washed away almost all traces and footprints.
After the body was carried away, Song Yuhang grabbed a handful of soil from a mud pit and brought it to the tip of her nose to smell.
“The soil is very hard. The heavy rain only washed away the loose soil covering the surface. The soil in the pit was not burned. This is not the primary crime scene.”
Xue Rui was taken aback: “You’re saying the deceased was killed elsewhere and then the body was dumped here?”
“That’s right. Let’s wait for the autopsy results.” Song Yuhang patted the dirt off her hands and stood up, sighing inwardly. If it were Lin Yan, she would most likely be able to tell me the cause right now.
“First, find the identity of the body. Check surveillance cameras, visit nearby residents. After identifying the body, investigate the deceased’s social connections to further lock down the criminal suspect, and verify each one.”
She hadn’t been at the scene for long, but Song Yuhang had already roughly outlined the investigation approach for them.
An image of the wristwatch on the body’s wrist, burned pitch-black, flashed through her mind.
To be able to be burned by fire without melting, it was most likely an expensive brand name.
Song Yuhang thought for a moment and brought up this point.
“There is a wristwatch on the deceased’s right wrist. It didn’t melt in the fire, so it’s most likely a luxury item. When purchasing such luxury items, the sales associate generally keeps customer information. Go back and check it carefully.”
Thanks to the time she spent with Lin Yan, Song Yuhang knew a thing or two about the lives of the wealthy.
Perhaps longing is just this kind of magical thing. Sometimes, I’m clearly doing something unrelated to her, yet I can suddenly think of her.
Perhaps this is what it means to be engraved in the bones and carved in the heart13.
Song Yuhang gave a bitter smile in her heart.
Xue Rui was awakened by her words, and his eyes instantly lit up: “It’s a good thing we asked Captain Song for help today, otherwise we would have absolutely no clue about this case.”
They were all old team members. Seeing her return, several colleagues came forward to greet her, and even said they wanted to treat her to a meal.
Song Yuhang waved her hand to refuse, taking off her gloves and putting them in her pocket.
“No, I have other things to do. I’m going home first. You guys carry on. If you need anything, find me again.”
Duan Cheng went to chase after her: “Hey, Captain Song…”
He was pulled back by Fang Xin: “Forget it, forget it. Let’s get to work.”
The others were also whispering among themselves.
“Do you guys feel like Captain Song has become a different person?”
“Of course. She used to smile before. Look how solitary and eccentric her temperament is now. I heard she doesn’t have any friends at the local station either.”
“If your girlfriend died, let’s see if you could still smile.”
“Crow’s beak14, don’t curse me, okay?”
“To be honest, I used to suspect Captain Song and Forensic Examiner Lin were a pair. I saw them making eyes at each other in the office several times. I didn’t expect it to be true.”
“Sigh, it’s just that Captain Song’s great future was wasted for nothing15. At such a young age, to have reached that level, there aren’t many.”
…
Song Yuhang twitched the corner of her lip, closed her umbrella, got into the car, and drove straight to the cemetery.
As was her custom when she wasn’t busy, she came to see her every day, but she hadn’t expected that he would be there too.
Lin Ge was holding a black umbrella. A bouquet of fresh white chrysanthemums leaned against the tombstone. Hearing the approaching footsteps, he slightly curved the corners of his lips.
“You’ve come.”
A whisper that was almost a sigh.
Song Yuhang looked at the white chrysanthemums next to the tombstone, then at him, and nodded: “So it was you.”
Compared to the large, magnificent bouquet of expensive flowers that Lin Ge had brought, the handful of wild chrysanthemums she had picked from the roadside and the few white roses, which were even more delicate and charming with raindrops on them, seemed a bit shabby.
Lin Ge twitched the corner of his lip: “She’s afraid of being lonely.”
Song Yuhang nodded, bent down, wiped the rainwater off the tombstone with her sleeve, and gently placed her own umbrella to cover the top of it.
“That’s why I come often.”
Lin Ge tilted his head to look at her. The curtain of night was falling. He was clearly smiling, but the smile did not reach his eyes.
He said, as if joking: “You should go down and accompany her.”
Song Yuhang nodded: “I will, but not now.”
Lin Ge turned around with his umbrella: “So that’s all there is to it.”
This rain, no, or rather, Lin Yan’s death, had made some of the things that had already created a barrier between the two of them even clearer.
Lin Ge had torn off his hypocritical mask, and she no longer needed to pretend to be magnanimous.
Song Yuhang didn’t turn back, looking at her in the photo.
“When she was alive, the last thing she said was that she agreed to be my fiancée. Now that she’s dead, she is my deceased wife. After a hundred years, we will share the same blanket and the same grave16.”
“I am alive now, not for the sake of improperly stealing life17.”
She clenched her fists tightly, rainwater streaming down her gaunt cheeks, word by word, chopping nails and slicing iron18.
“But rather to—”
Song Yuhang tilted her head up slightly: “Avenge her.”
“No matter who that person is.”
In the corner of her eye, Lin Ge’s body stiffened slightly.
He turned around and smiled sarcastically.
“If you really had this ability, she wouldn’t have died.”
After he left, Song Yuhang’s tightly clenched fist finally loosened. She squatted down again, threw the bouquet Lin Ge had brought far away, cleaned the area in front of the tombstone, and placed her own bouquet there, which was also her weighty love.
Song Yuhang’s hand traced the line of words on the tombstone, and her eyes grew hot.
—To fight for the rights of the living, to speak for the dead19.
She really did use this sentence as her epitaph.
“You know what? Today the city bureau had a murder case and asked me to be a consultant. Their forensic examiner couldn’t see anything at the scene, and I thought of you.”
Song Yuhang murmured to herself.
“You, you always used to speak for the deceased, but you yourself didn’t like to express yourself much. Whether it was being sick or folding a thousand paper cranes, you never told me. It was only when you couldn’t hide it anymore that I found out.”
Song Yuhang said, sniffing and leaning against the tombstone.
“I just wish now, that there was a time machine, to take me back to the past, back to the days when we first met. I promise I won’t be sharp point against wheat awn20 with you, I promise I won’t block you at your door, with fists and feet facing each other21.”
“I’ll listen to you in everything. You… can you come back?”
The rain was falling heavily. Song Yuhang didn’t know if she was crying or what, but her vision quickly blurred.
She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there. When half of her body was numb, she was gently shaken awake.
The cemetery keeper: “Miss, miss, the rain is so heavy, don’t sit here.”
Song Yuhang looked up and saw that the sky had completely darkened.
The other person was holding an umbrella for her and had a flashlight in his hand.
Song Yuhang got up, soaked from head to toe, a chicken that has fallen into soup22.
She wiped the rain from her face.
“Thank you.”
Saying that, she started to walk out.
The cemetery keeper asked curiously: “Who is this buried here to you? You come every day, with wind blowing and rain falling?”
Song Yuhang turned back and smiled slightly.
“My wife.”
Just as she got back into the car, before she had time to dry her hair, the phone she had tossed on the passenger seat rang. She picked it up and saw it was a message from Xue Rui.
“Identity of the body has been found. Deceased is Wang Qiang, general manager of Haoran Industrial Transport Co., Ltd., has a history of drug use.”
Below was a long list of Wang Qiang’s social connections.
Song Yuhang scrolled down one by one. Her finger suddenly stopped, and she was too shocked to speak as she looked at this familiar face.
Mistress—Pei Jinhong.
It’s her again.
Song Yuhang gritted her teeth.
LP: Re-translated on August 10, 2025
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