As if lightning had struck his mind, Yan Xie had only one thought: No, not me.
It was Jiang Ting!
Fan Zhengyuan chased and tried to kill Jiang Ting, and when those people attacked the police, Jiang Ting was also in the car; even he was shot because he was holding Jiang Ting in his arms at that time.
If that group of people didn't come for Li Yuxin, then their assassination target was self-evident!
Yan Xie felt a chill all over his body, and he couldn't speak for a long time.
His expression was so rare that Deputy Chief Wei thought he was frightened, so he quickly softened his tone: "Of course, you don't have to worry too much. The sales range of these locally-manufactured bullets is difficult to determine. The connection between that group of people and Fan Zhengyuan is only a guess of the police at the moment. Still, we have to catch those criminals before we can investigate any further. You must take good care of your injuries. I have arranged for some plainclothes policemen to patrol near the hospital. When you will be discharged from the hospital. I will let the people from the city bureau drive the car to take you back to Jianning…"
"Ah, it's alright," Yan Xie came back to his senses and forced a smile: "I was just thinking about something."
Deputy Chief Wei looked at him awkwardly, trying hard to hide his concern from his old face, such that his facial expression became a little distorted.
"It's all right, Fan Zhengyuan is already dead and can't die anymore. Sooner or later, the group of people who attacked the police will also be caught, and in the end, the mastermind behind the scenes would be revealed." Yan Xie touched his chin and coughed, "I was actually thinking about Bu Wei and Shen Xiaoqi, are they awake? Li Yuxin said that she saw two corpses at He Liang's execution site, which is likely to be the first victims in a series of kidnapping cases. Has it been found somewhere yet?"
The old man surnamed Wei could finally find faults and scolded him to cover up his overflowing worries: "How can you be so worried about this boy, your stomach is still not idle? Does the city bureau only rely on you to solve the cases?"
Yan Xie continued to drink his fish soup.
Wei Yao angrily told him about the current situation of Bu Wei and Shen Xiaoqi, the search for the kidnappers in the Tianzong Mountain area, and the strange mineral water bottle at the scene. He also told him that the blockade had been extended to the surrounding area of Tianzong Mountain to the border of Gongzhou. In fact, although the footprints and clothing fibers of the suspected kidnappers were extracted, they still hadn't found any valuable clues.
In addition, because Li Yuxin was suspected to be silenced, the place where she and He Liang were confronted by the kidnappers last year could not be pinpointed. That is to say, they knew that there were two bodies, but they couldn't find them—According to what Chief Lu said, the provincial party committee's Director Liu's blood pressure had soared in the past few days, and his mouth was full of anger; even drinking a whole two pounds of Chinese medicine was useless.
As Yan Xie listened, his soup-drinking movements gradually slowed down, and he inexplicably recalled Jiang Ting's voice in his mind:
"Hot summer nights, mid-July. This sentence means that in the evening in mid-July, the gorgeous sunset falls somewhere at 8:09, declaring the end of the youth, and the beginning of the time of punishment and the long night that follows is the entire execution process…"
"The one he really wants to execute is me."
Yan Xie put down the bowl thoughtfully.
He vaguely felt that the crux of the current situation lay in Jiang Ting's vague words. In his unknown past years, things closely related to images of betrayal and cowardice had happened, and those memories had been materialized by the mastermind behind the scenes through execution rituals and evolved into today's serial kidnappings.
Even Hu Weisheng and Ding Jiawang's drug gang, and the sniper who killed Fan Si were inextricably linked to this matter.
But what exactly was the connection?
"Okay, you can rest first." Deputy Chief Wei patted his sleeves and stood up: "Take a good rest and don't think too much. The city bureau has your Captain Yu to keep watch, and Qin Chuan has also been temporarily recruited to help. Your most important task is just not to let them down. Get back to health as soon as possible, and don't leave any old injuries, okay."
Yan Xie came back to his senses: "Qin Chuan came to the Criminal Investigation Division to help?"
"Then what else can happen, your Captain Yu has a heart disease, who dares to let her work overtime."
"…There are many things that Qin Chuan can't decide on his own. Is he asking Captain Yu or Captain Fang about it?"
The two looked at each other for a while, and Deputy Chief Wei couldn't help but laugh: "Oh, you're still bad-mouthing him because of the short argument?"
Yan Xie said: "Captain Fang usually also talks bad about me because of a short argument. This is just returning politeness with politeness. I'm also afraid that Old Fang will blame me for the things the spy did in the bureau and will keep an eye on me when I go back, which will not be good for my work."
Deputy Chief Wei seemed to want to say something, but he hesitated and only sighed.
Yan Xie was still thinking about the case, as well as all the things about the personnel changes in the Municipal Bureau. Then he looked at Deputy Chief Wei's behavior, feeling something wrong: "What?"
"Rather than worrying about Old Fang burying nails for you, you might as well worry about what to do after Captain Yu retires from illness." Deputy Chief Wei lowered his voice and said in his ear: "Deputy Chief Wang is going to retire."
Yan Xie raised his eyebrows.
"The carriage will find its way around the hill when it gets there and you will cross the bridge when you get to it; take a long-term perspective, and there will be no obstacle in your way." Deputy Chief Wei patted Yan Xie's shoulder and said earnestly: "Young man, health is the foundation of everything."
Yan Xie frowned and finally nodded, and Deputy Chief Wei then walked away with Ma Xiang.
...…
As soon as Wei Yao left, the ward became quiet again. Yan Xie faced the fish soup base in the cup by the bedside, and all kinds of thoughts kept spinning in his mind.
Deputy Chief Wang, who was in charge of personnel, was going to retire. It wasn't a big deal at first —Everyone would retire when they got old. In the public security system, unlike Jiang Ting's own halo, the vast majority of police officers were promoted step-by-step. As long as they did not make too many mistakes, they could always become a police inspector when they were old.
The bad thing was that the candidate to take over Deputy Chief Wang's position was Yu Zhu. But Yu Zhu had just released rumors that she was going to retire from illness.
If the organization intended to skip Yu Zhu, then the person who could be promoted after her, from the perspective of seniority, prestige, merit, and age, would obviously be Fang Zhenghong.
Yan Xie thought that he didn't have much conflict with Fang Zhenghong, except when he was young and ignorant and had just entered the city bureau. One day he went to the anti-drug division next door to find Qin Chuan to play, and Fang Zhenghong saw the watch he was wearing and asked casually, "Your watch is pretty good; which store did you buy it from?" Yan Xie, who was foolish at the time, took off the watch in public and said, "It's from the Royal Oak1 ; it only cost more than 600,000 yuan. If the Captain likes it, you can take it." — Apart from causing Fang Zhenghong to blacken his face on the spot and walk away, there had been no other awkwardness over the years.
But Fang Zhenghong seemed to hold grudges, and in recent years, he had become more and more narrow-minded. After returning to the team this time, Fang Zhenghong's behavior was even more obvious. He even managed to break into the criminal investigation division to point at Yan Xie and curse him, which made people wonder if he had reached menopause and couldn't control his emotions.
Yan Xie sighed, forcibly clearing the messy things from his mind, and focused his thinking back on the case.
In his more than ten years of front-line police work, he had experienced many major cases with twists and turns, bizarre grievances, and even some coincidences to the point where people had to be superstitious if things like ghosts really existed. But a case as weird and paradoxical as the current serial kidnapping case, filled with layers of misty imagery, was truly unprecedented.
Now thinking about what Jiang Ting said in the medical room that day, this case seemed to induce him to explore the inner world of the perpetrator, forcing him to always think and even empathize from the perpetrator's point of view, so much so that it felt as if he was dragged into some kind of vortex of malicious thoughts.
As a person who almost completely refused to talk to anyone, was Jiang Ting cryptically asking for help without even realizing it?
"Why haven't you come yet…" Yan Xie glanced at the time again and murmured.
After thinking for a while, he leaned against the wall, gritted his teeth, and walked out of the ward.
The floor with the single ward was not as crowded as ordinary floors, and there were not many people who came to visit the patient. He was only discovered by the head nurse when he walked through the corridor: "Oh, Officer Yan, why did you come out for a walk alone? What about your family?"
"My family member has eloped with someone!" Yan Xie said angrily, "Where's your phone? Let me use it."
The head nurse hurriedly led him to the front desk and lectured him: "Next time you must ring the bell and ask the nurse to send a cell phone in; don't run out. Although it is good to get out of bed and take one or two steps, in case you bump into something, what will you do? The director said that you have to stay in the hospital for at least two or three days…"
Yan Xie could only cope with it and send her away, thinking that you are treating me as if I'm in confinement. People can get out of bed the next day after the cesarean section. What is the matter with me for lying in bed for a week? If it weren't for you forcing me to rest in bed, I couldn't guarantee if I have already flown to the United States to play in the NBA by now!
——Fortunately, the head nurse didn't know what he was thinking; otherwise, she would have immediately confiscated the phone and sent him back to the ward to lock him up.
"Hello?" Jiang Ting's steady voice came from the receiver.
Yan Xie glanced around and saw that no one passed by except the little nurse at the front desk not far away who was squinting at him, and as soon as his eyes met with hers, she immediately got up and left with a blushing face.
"Consultant Lu," Yan Xie lowered his voice and deliberately asked, word by word, "Where's my lunch?"
The other end of the phone was a bit noisy, as if he was standing on the street. After a while, he heard Jiang Ting say, "I asked Ma Xiang to bring that box of fish soup for you to drink."
"Where are you?"
"The screen of this phone went black, so I'm buying a new one."
"Then you can bring me one too. It doesn't need to be very good, I'm going to use it only for two days. Oh, by the way, don't buy the blue and pink Meitu2 phone, just in case people think I'm a pervert."
"…Go back and buy it yourself, I won't go there."
"What? Why won't you come?"
Jiang Ting's answer was still very calm and simple: "I almost ran into your Deputy Chief Wei when I passed by today. I saw that there are a few more plainclothes policemen around the hospital building. They should be here to protect you. It's not convenient for me to show up in this situation. I'll go back to Jianning first, and will see you later."
As soon as he finished speaking, Yan Xie felt that he was about to hang up the phone. In a hurry, he knocked over the decorative flower pot on the front desk, and slammed the things over the table: "Wait!"
"What's wrong with you?"
"Are you all right, Officer Yan?" The little nurse who just ran away immediately turned back: "Oh, be careful! What happened, sit down!"
"Yan Xie?" Jiang Ting's voice over the receiver was obviously not very stable: "What's going on Yan Xie, please answer!"
Just as Yan Xie was about to say something, he suddenly turned his eyes and made up his mind. In a short moment, he made the most correct decision as if possessed by a god. He didn't answer Jiang Ting at all but sat down in the chair and made a heavy muffled sound as if his body fell to the ground.
Then with a click, he hung up the phone.
The little nurse was stunned: "Oh, Officer Yan, you…"
"It's okay," Yan Xie smiled at her: "I'm fishing."
As he said that, he got up and patted his butt, and strolled back to the ward to watch TV under the inexplicable stare of the little nurse.
...…
Half an hour later, the fish stood at the door of the ward, with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a shopping bag from the telecom business hall. From the taunt forehead to the straight lips, it could be seen that the fish was not in a good mood.
"What the hell happened to you just now?"
Yan Xie innocently sat cross-legged on the hospital bed and played with the TV remote control: "I didn't stand still and slipped; what's wrong?"
"….."
"Oh, you look like you rushed to come here, really." Yan Xie immediately got up and took out a lychee from the imported fruit basket and peeled it. His handsome face was full of warm smiles: "Come, eat the fruit, I specially bought it for you."
Jiang Ting didn't seem to see the white lychee; he took out a new mobile phone from his shopping bag and threw it to Yan Xie: "There are at least four or five policemen inside and outside this building, why did you call me here?"
Yan Xie caught it and saw that it was the latest Apple phone, exactly the same as the one he had broken in the water.
He couldn't help laughing, thinking that Jiang Ting was indeed Jiang Ting, but he deliberately said: "So you're not so worried about me after all. Look, you still have the heart to keep picking up your phone, so you were not in a hurry."
Jiang Ting said coldly, "I'm not a doctor, so I can't insert an oxygen tube for you if I rush here!"
"Oh, still angry." Yan Xie's face was full of compromise, and tried to coax him: "Well, it's because Chief Wei just came here and said that there is new progress in the investigation, and I was very anxious to discuss it with you, officer Jiang. Don't be angry, police flower; be good, come and eat the fruit." He got up and pulled Jiang Ting into the armchair beside the hospital bed and sat down, then peeled an orange with his own hands and shoved it into Jiang Ting's hand.
One of the advantages of Jiang Ting was that because he didn't eat much, his blood pressure was always low, and the little food stuffed into his hands would basically be eaten subconsciously. Yan Xie watched him tear up a piece of orange and stuff it into his mouth unhappily. His eyes stayed on his lips for a long time before he looked away and said, "The grandson who attacked us this time is probably the same group of people as Fan Si. "
Jiang Ting held the piece of orange: "What?"
Yan Xie relayed the information that Chief Wei had just given him. He didn't want to mention the office struggle, but because Jiang Ting had witnessed Fang Zhenghong running to the criminal investigation detachment to scold him, he passed on the city bureau's possible personnel changes in a few words. He said: "If the criminal who crashed the car and fired the shot is really in a group with Fan Si or is employed by the same employer, then it is hard to say whether their target was you, me, or Li Yuxin. It is especially dangerous for you. "
Jiang Ting seemed to be lost in thought and put the orange, which he had just eaten from, on the bedside table.
"Not necessarily," he said suddenly after a while.
"Uh-huh?"
"The same bullet composition can only mean that the two groups of killers share the same purchase channel or come from the same area, and it is not certain that their target was really me. If someone really wants to kill me, there are many opportunities in Jianning to do it. It was not necessary to catch me when I was sitting in the police car, which caused too much movement and was too difficult to finish, which was contrary to the logic of normal behavior."
—This point of view was indeed justified.
"Really?" Yan Xie's face remained calm, "Then you think the bullet thing is just a coincidence?"
Jiang Ting said, "Maybe, maybe the two killers happened to use the same underground intermediary. This clue can be traced after you return to Jianning."
Yan Xie nodded while sitting on the edge of the hospital bed and said to himself with his hands on his knees: "Unfortunately, although the hostages were rescued, Li Yuxin was silenced, and in the end, we lost the trace of the kidnapper… It would be great if we had more clues."
Jiang Ting didn't seem to hear it at all. He stood up and said, "We can't do anything if there are no more clues. I'll go first, take care of yourself."
"Where are you going?"
"Yang Mei found someone to pick me up and take me back to Jianning."
Yan Xie suddenly raised his head but saw that Jiang Ting had already stood up, and turned around to walk towards the door of the ward.
Jiang Ting thought about his previous self and laughed mockingly. He had always been empty-handed and possessed nothing, so he came and went very neatly, surprising when he appeared and difficult to hold when he left. Yan Xie stared at his back, and his brows twitched, knowing that he couldn't let him go like this. During this period of time, the various speculations that often hovered in his mind ran like lightning, and suddenly a very bold and tentative idea emerged:
"——You know that that group of people want to kill you, and you still dare to leave me to act alone. Do you expect 'that person' to solve the problem again as he did with Fan Si by killing him?"
The air in the ward seemed to freeze for a moment, and then Jiang Ting turned around:
"…What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." Yan Xie stared at his dark eyes and stood up from the bedside: "What I'm curious about is what kind of relationship you have, that you can tell Li Yuxin that you have betrayed that person, and at the same time be so confident that that person will protect you?"
Jiang Ting's body was half-turned, and he didn't completely turn around to face Yan Xie. His face seemed as pale as ice, and after a long time, he said lightly, "What betrayal, I lied to her."
Yan Xie's facial expression didn't change.
Jiang Ting said, "It's common to use different kinds of methods to induce confessions during the interrogation process. Don't tell me you take it seriously?"
"I don't have to take it seriously, because that's the truth."
Yan Xie walked toward Jiang Ting step by step until he stood in front of him: "That wasn't to induce confession, nor was it an interrogation technique. It's that you saw the shadow of your past in those two young couples, He Liang and Li Yuxin, Bu Wei, and Shen Xiaoqi. The so-called 'betrayal' has nothing to do with the two boys at all, it happened between you and the mastermind behind the scenes, and only the two of you know the past."
Although Yan Xie was injured, he was still half a head taller than Jiang Ting when he stood up. The sense of oppression brought by a strong male body was especially obvious when the two faced each other, almost shrouding Jiang Ting's side face in the shadows:
"—It's all come to this point, you still don't plan to tell the truth. Do you want to watch the kidnapping case continue to happen, Captain Jiang?"
"What do you think is the truth?" Jiang Ting said, "Don't be so troublesome, just tell me, and then I'll tell you."
At such a close distance, Jiang Ting had to lift his chin slightly to meet Yan Xie's eyes, but his posture was still very calm, like ice that could not be shaken no matter what.
Yan Xie lowered his head slightly, gritted his teeth, and almost stuck to Jiang Ting's ear: "The person who was betrayed by you, the mastermind behind the serial kidnappings, was the gun holder whose face we couldn't clearly see on Hu Weisheng's rooftop, right?"
"….."
"His name is the King of Spades, the big drug lord behind 'Tingyun'." Yan Xie said softly, "Ding Dang explained everything in the detention center."
Jiang Ting's pupils dilated slightly when the word 'Tingyun' reached his ears.
"Jiang Ting," Yan Xie raised his head and stared into his eyes condescendingly, "I don't want to use threats to force you to provide any clues because I know that with your IQ, you can easily tell lies that are more convincing than real gold. I hope you're willing to trust me and cooperate with the police. But if you insist on defending the King of Spades, I'll be very, very disappointed in you——"
"What would you do if the person I rescued at the risk of dying was actually connected to a drug lord?"
Jiang Ting nodded slightly, a sneer appeared on the corner of his lips, and then the smile became more and more obvious under Yan Xie's gaze.
"Related to the drug lord." He repeated the word with that smile, then raised his eyebrows and asked, "So you believed that attaching an anti-drugs police officer name to a drug lord wasn't considered an extreme humiliation but proof of some kind of old relationship?"
Yan Xie didn't say a word.
"Or is it that the reason why you have doubts about this has nothing to do with the case at all. It was just some far-fetched desire in your heart that you didn't dare to show me—"
Jiang Ting slowly lengthened the end of the last word, with a deliberate sneer: "Vice-Captain Yan?"
In an instant, Yan Xie froze in place!
It was one thing to know the secret feelings that couldn't be expressed, but it was another thing to say them. What's more, in the current situation of extreme stalemate, recklessly tearing it apart. That kind of huge embarrassment, and the impact was extremely violent.
Jiang Ting's eyes showed a few regrets. He turned around and went to open the door. His movements were neat and harsh.
But just as his fingertips touched the doorknob, someone grabbed his right shoulder, and then turned it over with force, before he had time to break free, he was pushed to the door with a "bang!"
"Far-fetched?" Yan Xie said coldly: "Do you really think I dare not say it?"
Jiang Ting suddenly tried to turn his head back, but the door behind him prevented him from dodging, and by the time he turned around, Yan Xie had already squeezed his chin and kissed him.