Old friend
“According to reliable intelligence, there will be a trade of goods worth two hundred million in ten days, and your mission is—” he bent his fingers into a joint and lightly tapped the map.
“Find out the location of the trade.”
Lin Yan frowned, “Last time I came out of the teahouse, someone was chasing me. They already have suspicions, so such a sensitive secret cannot be told to me.”
Feng Jianguo shrugged, “Precisely because it’s sensitive, it needs a nail to be deeply inserted, a fatal blow.”
Lin Yan still felt something was off.
“Who can afford such a huge sum of two hundred million?”
As expected of the meticulous forensic doctor, she hit the nail on the head in one shot. Feng Jianguo remained unfazed.
“If we could know that, would we still need an undercover? Those who can afford such a big sum are most likely involved in the underworld, so it’s a perfect opportunity to catch them all in one go.”
Lin Yan tapped her forehead with her finger, “Time is running out, let me think carefully.”
At present, the highest-level figures she can contact are Kuba and Tiger. As for the Supreme Lord above them, she hasn’t even met them in person. Since this is a core secret, maybe even Tiger is unaware of it. To get the information, she may need to start with Kuba.
Feng Jianguo pulled out a black and white photo from the file bag and placed it on the desk.
“I’ll give you this opportunity.”
“This is—”
Lin Yan’s pupils contracted.
Feng Jianguo nodded slowly, “Indeed, it’s the Supreme Lord.”
On a rainy night, the Qingshan Villa seemed to be veiled in a light mist, silently standing there.
Song Yuhang parked the car to the side and slowly rolled down the window, turned her head to look at it, as if she could still see the past when the lights were bright, and remember the good times.
After Lin Yan’s death, there were only two places where her heart could truly calm down. One was in front of her tombstone.
The second was here.
On many sleepless nights tossing and turning, she either stood in front of her tombstone all night or smoked under the streetlight.
She used to not be a person who loved smoking and drinking, but now she almost smoked a pack a day.
Song Yuhang reclined the seat slightly, looked up at the rain splashing on the eaves of the villa, dripping down, quickly forming puddles at the entrance.
In that reflection, it seemed like a pair of people standing side by side.
She smiled slightly, extinguishing the cigarette butt in the ashtray.
Since returning from the danger in the suburbs, she hadn’t slept well for two days in a row. At this moment, after drinking a bit, drowsiness finally surged up.
Song Yuhang leaned against the seat, turned her head to look at their former home, thinking of her, gradually falling asleep.
She dreamt of Lin Yan as she wished, dreaming of their upcoming wedding, dressed in a white wedding gown. When Father Lin handed her over to her with her hand, a sudden fire engulfed everything.
Song Yuhang slept uneasily, turning her head slightly, her face pale, sweat beading on her forehead.
She murmured, “Lin Yan… don’t!”
Tears suddenly streamed down her cheeks.
She fell into a vast deep sea, the scene shifted, and the world turned gray.
She watched her younger self push open the study door, rubbing her eyes, “Dad, who are you talking to?”
The middle-aged man with a scruffy beard lifted her onto his lap, kissing her cheek.
“Yuhang, call him Uncle Lin.”
“Is this your daughter?” The man sitting across from her father, similar in age, gently ruffled her hair.
The little girl was slightly shy, tugging at her clothes and meeting the eyes of the stranger.
That face… she had seen it before!
Song Yuhang desperately wanted to make some noise: Dad, Uncle Lin, what’s going on here?!
But she felt like she was standing inside a transparent glass dome, watching everything happening outside with her eyes wide open, yet unable to speak or move.
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Song Yuhang heard the little girl sweetly call out, “Uncle Lin.”
Then she was set down from the man’s lap.
“Okay, you have kindergarten tomorrow, time to go to sleep, sweetie.”
The little girl didn’t dare to defy her father’s wishes and reluctantly walked out.
She watched as the girl stood outside the door, pressed her eyes against the crack in the door, perked up her ears to eavesdrop.
“Supreme Lord…”
“Seven days later…”
Some blurry words floated into her ears.
The girl’s mother walked over, leading her towards the bedroom.
“Why are you not sleeping again? Getting up in the middle of the night, be careful your dad scolds you.”
The girl made a face, “He won’t scold me, he even introduced me to a new uncle.”
Song Yuhang opened her mouth, “Mom! Mom! It’s me! I’m here!”
She pounded on the invisible glass layer, bubbles popping from her mouth, but ultimately, no one responded.
Song Yuhang closed her eyes, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Suddenly turning her head, in a daze, she heard a series of “bang, bang, crackle” sounds. Thinking it was gunfire, she instinctively reached for the mechanical stick on the passenger’s side.
“Who?!”
The street cleaner outside the car window was startled.
“I thought no one was here, could you move a bit, you’re blocking the road.”
Song Yuhang opened her eyes to a faint eastern dawn filtering through the windshield, the rain had stopped.
Oh… had she really slept that long?
She awkwardly smiled at the cleaner outside and released the mechanical stick.
“Sorry, I’ll move right now.”
As she drove back on the road, her mind was incredibly clear, subconscious memories of events that had already happened but gradually been forgotten resurfaced.
So, she had met Lin Youyuan before.
So, her father and Lin Yan’s father were old friends.
And, who was this “Supreme Lord” they mentioned?
It seems that to find the answer, she must go to that place.
Entering the bustling city area, Song Yuhang glanced at the small ads on the roadside poles and randomly chose a place that issued fake documents, making a call.
Half an hour later.
City Library.
After showing her identification and stating her purpose, the administrator yawned.
“Quite early of you to be here first.”
“Just for work, I’ll stay here and not take anything out.” Song Yuhang obediently took out her phone and placed it on the counter.
Impatiently, the administrator waved her hand, indicating for her to proceed.
Song Yuhang nodded, tucked the fake press pass into her pocket, pretended to take out a notebook, and walked inside.
The city’s public library, the largest and most well-stocked place in Jiangcheng, was previously the Jiangcheng City Archives. After all documents were electronically archived after 2000, it gradually declined. The city government then converted it into a library for citizens to read, learn, and pass the time.
However, most of the people who came here were just checking in and having coffee; only a few were seriously reading books.
As the library had just opened in the early morning, there was nobody around.
As Song Yuhang walked in, the distinctive smell of books’ ink entered her nostrils.
She followed the index, scanning the shelves filled with rare books and ancient manuscripts, where she could find many things not available on the intranet.
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Such as old newspapers from forty years ago.
If she searched on the intranet, there would surely be some response from the other side, so she decided to take a different approach.
The library was quite large, with three floors. After wandering along the corridors for a while, she finally found the stairs and, following the administrator’s instructions, managed to reach the reading room on the third floor.
There was a registration desk at the entrance, and she handed over her identification.
“Hello, I would like to look for some old magazines and newspapers.”
The staff looked up at her face, then checked her identification, tossing the small booklet to the side without returning it.
“Go in, it’s the last corner on the sixth row,.”
Song Yuhang glanced at her fake pass, “Then…”
The staff was immersed in playing cards on the computer, thoroughly enjoying themselves.
“Register later, no time now, come back later to pick it up.”
“Alright.”
Song Yuhang obediently walked in and found the bookshelf as directed, squatting down to search for what she needed.
She was specifically looking for copies of the Legal Daily.
Her purpose was very clear.
Quickly, she sorted through the pile of old books and newspapers and brought a stack to a nearby seat, opening her notebook to start transcribing.
“In 1994, the Fenyang Wharf dismemberment case…” a pin-sized camera hidden in the pen’s tip flickered.
Continuing to flip through, she skipped over some irrelevant cases and dates until she reached 1978. Her pupils suddenly contracted as a large headline read:
“The Binhai Province police recently cracked a major drug trafficking case, seizing 20.3 kg of heroin on the spot, along with 5 vehicles and arresting 14 co-conspirators, and fatally shooting the drug lord – ‘Supreme Lord’. With this, the transnational criminal organization spanning China and Myanmar has all been captured.”
Lin Yan leaned on the desk, holding a glass of red wine in her hand, staying up all night, pondering over what Feng Jianguo had said last night.
“The Supreme Lord isn’t dead?!”
The old man shook his head, “Supreme Lord is just a term used by the Hong Kong underworld, it doesn’t refer to a specific person.”
“So, the old ‘Supreme Lord’ who died in a police crackdown several years ago, and the one alive now, is a different ‘Supreme Lord’?!”
“Yes, back then I was just a young police officer and did not have the qualifications to participate in such a battle. I only heard from my seniors that the battle was extremely fierce, with heavy losses on the police side, so it was not widely reported.”
“After that, the border was peaceful for a long time, and drug traffickers disappeared. Who knew that now -“
He paused, clenching his teeth.
“They have returned, bringing new types of drugs like ‘Drunken Dream.’ If these are widely promoted, the consequences would be unimaginable. Border security is hanging by a thread, and I don’t know how many families will be destroyed…”
A gust of wind passed by, shaking the candle flame and casting a golden light on the old man’s face.
Lin Yan fell silent, and after a while, she finally spoke.
“Whoever can create ‘Drunken Dream’ must be a chemistry expert. Do you have any suspects?”
Feng Jianguo sighed, “I wish we did. The Supreme Lord is elusive, and the one who handles things for him is Kuba.”
He then showed a photo.
Lin Yan glanced at it, “And there’s also Tiger, another enforcer responsible for coordinating with buyers and confirming trade locations.”
She picked up a photo and placed it in the center. The photo only showed a black silhouette, no visible face.
“So far, we know Kuba, the Supreme Lord’s trusted aide, Tiger, the enforcer for the drug group, me, Pei Jinhong, responsible for receiving shipments and finding suitable buyers.”
“The Supreme Lord, the leader of the group, unknown; the mastermind behind drug production, unknown; the person responsible for transporting drugs, unknown; the production location of ‘Drunken Dream,’ unknown; trade locations, unknown.”
Lin Yan slammed down her pen, “We don’t know anything, and we’re just running in circles!”
“Don’t worry, even though we don’t know all this, we’ve received information that in three days, the Supreme Lord will arrive to meet this mysterious buyer. It will be your chance to infiltrate the core management of the criminal group.”
“The Supreme Lord is already dead, then who could it be? Who could it be?” Song Yuhang muttered, flipping through the newspaper quickly. She noticed that the detailed report had been cut out completely.
She managed to capture a photo with the pinhole camera before someone tapped her on the shoulder.
“Is this your ID?” Song Yuhang turned around to see the same administrator holding her fake pass, looking displeased.
“Why isn’t it showing up in the system?”
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Song Yuhang awkwardly chuckled, casually closing her notebook without a trace, and pocketed the pen with the pinhole camera.
“Really? Let me see.”
She took it from the administrator’s hand and pretended to examine it closely, “That’s impossible.”
The administrator also seemed puzzled, as she didn’t seem like a criminal.
Suddenly, Song Yuhang’s eyes lit up as she pointed outside the window, “What’s that over there?”
The administrator instinctively turned around, and she took the opportunity to grab her bag and run, leaping over the table and leaving behind two footprints.
“Sorry!”
“Hey, don’t run!”
The administrator staggered out, pushing aside the chairs and tables to chase after her. However, the person had already disappeared at the end of the corridor, leaving the administrator muttering to herself, “What a lunatic!”
After obtaining the valuable information, Song Yuhang returned home and immediately started developing the photos. She pinned them on her whiteboard and stepped back to examine the clues.
Some unclear things were gradually becoming clearer to her.
She knew she had to revisit the logistics park where she had discovered the drug factory last time, hoping to find new leads.
Song Yuhang opened a packet of instant noodles, didn’t bother with a bowl, poured hot water directly into the bag, used a plastic container, quickly stirred with chopsticks, finished a few mouthfuls, grabbed her keys, and left the house.
LP: So the buyer is Lin Youyuan huh?