The Grand Finale
Firewood and Fire are Passed On (1)1
No Flirting at the Crime Scene.
Three years later.
It was a rainy day. A bus slowly pulled up and stopped in a puddle. A crowd of people entered one by one like fish2, and the girl folded her umbrella and hopped on too.
The morning rush hour bus was packed on this summer day. Even with the air conditioning on, everyone’s skin was covered in a layer of sticky dampness.
The girl held onto a hanging strap with one hand, swaying with the movement of the vehicle, while using her other hand to look up a route on her phone.
She had just typed out the words “Jiangcheng City Public Security Bureau” when the bus’s television screen flickered to life.
“Early this morning, dozens of skeletons were unearthed at a construction site in our city’s Jiangbei Development Zone…”
Professional instinct made the girl snap her head up and stare at the screen.
The reporter was wearing a raincoat. She pointed into the distance, and the camera panned over. “The excavators at the scene have now stopped operating. Not far ahead, you can see a deep pit. That is the construction site for the Beixin Real Estate Company’s new development, and it was right there that dozens of skeletons were discovered. The police are currently clearing the scene and awaiting appraisal by specialists.”
Rain pattered noisily on the reporter’s umbrella, and the sound of police sirens could be heard in the background.
“It is reported that the leadership of the Jiangcheng City Public Security Bureau is taking this matter very seriously. Deputy Chief Song Yuhang has already led a team to the scene.”
A police car with “On-Site Command” written on its side stopped in front of the construction site with the speed of wind and lightning.3
The door opened and a pair of gleaming leather shoes stepped out. At the same time, an umbrella was opened to hold the car door for the person inside.
A few sharp-eyed reporters spotted them and swarmed over like a hive of bees.4
“Chief Song, Chief Song is here! Chief Song, please say something about this case.”
“Chief Song, are these skeletons actually human bones?”
“Chief Song, I’m a reporter from the Jiangcheng Daily. Could I take a moment of your time for a brief interview about this case?”
Song Yuhang, the Deputy Chief of the Jiangcheng City Public Security Bureau, was a legend. Not just because she was one of the few women to stand on the political stage, but also because of her glorious deeds of cracking one strange case after another and single-handedly fighting drug traffickers. Countless versions of her stories had long been in circulation.
The tales told among the people bordered on the divine5, but she herself rarely appeared in public and never accepted interviews, especially the kind that sang her praises. In her own words: “It’s a waste of time. With that much free time, I’d rather crack a few more cases and go home early to eat with Lin Yan.”
As everyone knew, in the eyes of the entire police force of Jiangcheng, the brilliant and formidable Chief Song was, in essence, a wife slave6, that’s all.7
This person, who was usually like a divine dragon that shows its head but not its tail8, had finally appeared at a crime scene. A group of media reporters were rubbing their fists and wiping their palms9, planning to dig up some explosive material from her.
Song Yuhang got out of the car, slammed the door with one hand, pulled her wide-brimmed hat down on her forehead, and straightened her collar. Her spring and autumn uniform was worn impeccably. Her face was cold as her brow furrowed.
“What are you standing around for? Lock down the scene!”
The person holding her umbrella froze, and before he could react, she was already striding into the rain toward the edge of the pit. She pulled gloves from her pocket and put them on with swift professionalism.
The precinct officers who had arrived earlier seemed to snap back to their senses. They pulled up the police tape and began pushing the crowd back.
The elite officers who had come with Song Yuhang also surrounded the area. Each one stood in the rain, their eyes sharp, forming a human wall.
“Back up, back up, protect the scene! All unauthorized personnel are forbidden to approach!”
Xue Rui and the others also jumped out of their vehicle and ducked under the police tape, followed by Duan Cheng, Fang Xin, and the rest.
“Chief Song, Chief Song.”
Song Yuhang was crouching by the edge of the pit, observing the situation below. She gave a slight nod. “Get to work.”
“Next stop, Jinhua Commercial Center.” The automated announcement sounded in the bus. The vehicle came to a sudden, screeching halt at the stop. The girl was thrown forward by the inertia, nearly sending her phone flying. She finally snapped her attention away from the bus television, grabbed her umbrella, and ran for the door.
“Mister, mister, someone’s getting off! Excuse me, excuse me.”
After finally managing to squeeze out of the crowd, the girl let out a sigh of relief, then stared dumbfounded at the completely unfamiliar street.
No way… Will I get fired for being late on my first day?
She hesitated for a long moment before taking out her phone and calling the person who had recruited her.
“Hello, Teacher Duan…”
Before she could finish, the sound of rain mixed with a man’s roar came from the other end. “Are you there yet? If not, don’t go to the Public Security Bureau. We’re short-staffed, come straight to the scene to report for duty!”
The call was then abruptly disconnected. The girl was dumbstruck. Seeing a taxi slide to a stop nearby, she quickly flagged it down and gave the address: “Jiangbei Development Zone, Beixin Real Estate Company.”
Duan Cheng hung up and wiped his phone on a dry spot on his sleeve before stuffing it in his pocket. Fang Xin walked past him and shot him a glance. It was a casual look, but Duan Cheng immediately threw his hands up.
“Hey, it’s really not a young girl this time. She’s a new forensic intern from the tech division. I told her to come straight to the scene.”
Fang Xin, carrying an investigation kit, carefully stepped over two skeletons. “I’ve got to say, you’ve really got some nerve, having her come see corpses on her first day of work.”
Duan Cheng laughed and crouched down to get tools from the kit. “Compared to Lin-jie forcing my head down onto the autopsy table to observe the bloated corpse phenomenon10, this is much, much gentler.”
Fang Xin scoffed and stopped bantering with him, focusing on collecting trace evidence from the scene.
A few junior technicians taking photos of the skeletons whispered amongst themselves. “With a case this big, do you think Lin-jie will show up?”
Someone shook their head and leaned in to take another close-up of a skeleton. “Probably not, after all…”
Before he could finish, a commotion broke out outside the police tape.
“Let me in… I… I’m the new forensic intern who started today.”
The detective in charge of crowd control gave a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “A reporter, right? Try a different excuse next time, okay?”
The girl’s face flushed with anxiety. “Hey, no, I’m really not a reporter…”
Duan Cheng stood up, glanced over, and waved his hand. “Let her through. She’s new to the tech division.”
Only then did the detective blocking her way rub his nose and lift the police tape for her. “Go on in. Don’t blame us, it’s just that these reporters are so damn annoying…”
The young woman nodded, clutched her bag, and walked to the edge of the pit. She looked down, and her face instantly turned pale.
The pit wasn’t large, maybe about a hundred square meters and over a meter deep. Seven or eight technicians in white protective suits were busy at work. As they patiently cleared away the dirt, more skeletons were unearthed from the bottom of the pit, scattered about without any pattern.
As she looked down, she saw that Duan Cheng had spread out a blue sterile cloth beside him. He was holding a freshly cleaned skull and gently placing it on the cloth. Its dark, empty eye sockets stared right at her.
The girl’s heart jumped, and she instinctively took a step back.
Duan Cheng called out, “Get your gear and come down here! Can’t you see we’re busy? Come help!”
“Oh, coming, coming.” The girl took a mask and gloves from a nearby technician, deftly put on shoe covers, but was so nervous on her way down the slope that she practically tumbled and slid to the bottom.
The members of the tech division turned to look, letting out a few stifled laughs.
Duan Cheng was amused too. He cleaned another human bone and placed it on the sterile cloth. “First time seeing a corpse?”
The girl stammered, “In… in school… I’ve… I’ve seen a Great Body Teacher.”11
Fang Xin nudged him with his elbow, giving him a look that said, don’t bully the intern.
Duan Cheng cleared his throat. “Alright, go over there and help carry the camera. You know how to take criminal record photographs, right?”
The girl nodded like she was pounding garlic12 and made her way along the edge of the pit. “Yes, yes, yes! Don’t worry, Teacher Duan.”
Xue Rui was taking statements from the witnesses, a few excavator operators, while Song Yuhang listened in. Someone from the local precinct tried to offer her a cigarette, but she waved it away.
This one was famous for being like a pot that oil and salt cannot enter.13
The precinct chief looked embarrassed. He turned his head abruptly. The headlights of another police car, this one marked “Crime Scene Investigation,” lit up the road in front of the construction site.
Song Yuhang followed the sound with her eyes. The person who had been stone-faced just a moment ago suddenly broke into a helpless smile.
“Give me the umbrella.” She took the umbrella from an officer beside her and walked over, apparently to greet someone.
The little intern forensic examiner had been bent over taking pictures for a long time. When she finally straightened up, she saw the figure and excitedly tugged on a colleague’s sleeve.
“Isn’t… isn’t that Chief Song… I heard rumors about her back in school… She was the one who cracked that huge drug manufacturing and trafficking case in Jiangcheng, and the Fenyang Pier dismemberment case from seventeen years ago…”
Her colleague shot her a look. Great, another young girl here for Chief Song. “We’ve all heard her legends. Get back to work, newbie. You’ll soon find out that although Chief Song is good-looking and amiable, she doesn’t tolerate the slightest sloppiness when it comes to solving cases.”
The forensic examiner, who was on her first time out of the thatched hut14, was still on her tiptoes, gazing until her eyes were worn through15, as Song Yuhang pulled open the car door and leaned in slightly to help the person out.
“Who is that? Who has so much face16 that she’d personally greet them in Jiangcheng…”
Resting on Song Yuhang’s wrist was a woman’s hand, slender, fair, and long.
Following that hand down, a woman in black high heels got out of the car. The curtain of rain blurred her features. As she got closer, the little forensic examiner saw that she was also wearing the spring and autumn uniform. Her shoulder epaulets were adorned with a silver olive branch and two four-pointed stars. Her brown, curly hair was neatly coiled and tucked into a soft-brimmed cap, tied into a low ponytail at the nape of her neck.
Her profile, shrouded in the misty rain, was as white as jade, but it was the slash of her red lips that etched itself into one’s mind.
It was a beauty that made the heart palpitate.
The little forensic examiner was so captivated she could only stare, her mouth hanging open in an “O.”
Song Yuhang pulled the person closer, tilting the umbrella in her direction. Soon, more than half of her own body was soaked.
She grumbled, “Didn’t I tell you to rest at home? Why did you come running over here again?”
Lin Yan rolled her eyes, not bothering to answer her.
“This morning I took ten calls from the media, five from the municipal government, three from the provincial Public Security Department, and guess who the last one was from.”
Song Yuhang smiled, taking the investigation kit from her hand and carefully supporting her by the waist as they walked slowly toward the pit. “Careful, the ground is slippery. I’m guessing it was Feng Jianguo.”
Lin Yan snorted through her nose. “That old coot. His nose is sharper than a dog’s. When he couldn’t find you, he had no choice but to find me.”
When Song Yuhang was at a scene, she generally didn’t look at her phone and had no time for such things.
Lin Yan’s rare vacation had been disturbed again, and they weren’t even considering her special circumstances right now.
Song Yuhang ground her teeth. “I’m going to call the telecom department another day and have them block the signal at our house.”
Lin Yan’s eyes curved into a smile, and she jabbed an elbow into her side. “Stop messing around. What kind of Public Security Chief blocks their own signal? Get to work. Let’s talk business.”
Song Yuhang wasn’t annoyed. She took two steps to catch up, holding the umbrella, her expression anxious. “Hey, no, I mean, you’re pregnant and you’re still running out to a crime scene. How can I not worry…”
The little forensic examiner’s eyes went wide. Only then did she notice the slight swell of the woman’s abdomen beneath her police uniform. Her figure was so slender that if you didn’t look closely, you would never guess she was pregnant.
Lin Yan turned back and glared at her. “Shut your crow’s beak17. Give me the investigation kit.”
The woman’s voice wasn’t loud, but she dared to give Song Yuhang a look and throw a tantrum in front of so many people.
The little forensic examiner swallowed hard, unable to speak properly. “Sh-sh-she… she is…”
Lin Yan, Captain of the Technical Team of the Jiangcheng City Public Security Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division and Director of the Forensic Office. She was also a senior researcher at the Ministry of Public Security’s Evidence Identification Center, had participated in numerous national-level difficult case investigations, and was truly a textbook-level figure.
When she was still studying in the forensic medicine department at Binhai University, she had attended her autopsy class.
The girl never imagined she would meet two of her idols at once. She was so excited she couldn’t speak.
Before she could manage to say anything coherent, Song Yuhang passed by, supporting the other woman, and dropped a single, light sentence.
“She is my wife.”
Then she was the first to jump down into the deep pit, before gently lifting the other woman down.
Lin Yan’s complaints could be faintly heard on the wind. “Song Yuhang, I can walk by myself. I’m just pregnant, not crippled.”
“No way. What if you fall from that height? It was so hard for us to get pregnant.”
Lin Yan flew into a rage. “Can’t you wish me something good for a change? Scram! Don’t bother this old mother18 while I’m examining the bodies!”
The forensic examiner, who was on her first time out of the thatched hut, watched the backs of her two idols and thought weakly: Um, seniors, the bureau has a rule… no flirting at the crime scene…
The author has something to say:
I heard today is a day that only comes once every four years, so I updated [meow meow]
Thank you for reading. There will be another big, fat chapter in a few days, and then we will officially enter the final arc.
Thank you, everyone, I love you all~ 【Bows】
LP: Re-translated on October 29, 2025
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They are so cute
They are so cute