A few minutes later, Yan Xie's cell phone vibrated, and a gloomy, fierce, and young face appeared on the screen.
Jin Jie, male, Burmese nationality. His name was not guaranteed to be authentic, and his age was unknown, but between twenty-six and twenty-nine. When he was just a teenager, he was involved in local gangs, being involved in many over the years. The crimes he committed with conclusive evidence include collecting money to kill opponents in black market boxing matches, illegal gun possession, smuggling ivory[1], killing military police in shoot-outs, selling large amounts of drugs, etc.
Five years ago, the armed police seized a batch of Heroin at the China-Myanmar border. Most of the drug traffickers were killed on the spot during the crossfire, and two criminals were captured alive. But the siege wasn't a complete success, because one of the drug traffickers was able to act quickly. While being outflanked by five or six armed police soldiers, he seriously injured two people and escaped. The armed police team searched the jungle for three days, but still couldn't find any trace of him.
Later, according to the drug traffickers' confession, that young man was sent from "above" to supervise the escort of the goods. His role was to carry out the execution in case anyone dared to hide goods or gold during the transportation. No one in the entire smuggling team knew his real name. Usually, he was called Jie Ge according to the Chinese habit, or "Bo Jie"[2] according to the Burmese habit. Only once has the leader of the convoy ever addressed him as "Jack of Diamonds".
Since then, this person had gradually disappeared from Myanmar. According to the Myanmar military police, he died on the Myanmar-China border — who knows how much money the local military and police have received from drug traffickers.
Now it seems that this person was not only alive, but even illegally immigrated into China.
"Jack of Diamonds——" Yan Xie rubbed his chin and said, "If we arrange the cards in the order, this person should be the third highest in the King of Spades' drug cartel, right?"
The piano sounded elegantly in the five-star hotel restaurant, the air was fragrant, the waiters occasionally came and went without making any noise, and there was a very subtle clunking sound from the cups in the distance.
Jiang Ting used the spoon to gently stir the little bit of seafood porridge left in the bowl. He lowered his eyes and said, "He should be!"
Yan Xie hissed softly, "That's not right."
"..."
"The big boss and the third-in-command of a transnational criminal group went to Hu Weisheng's rooftop alone to search for a bag of 'blue gold'. Were they too daring, or did they not care about their lives? There must be another reason for this."
Jiang Ting said: "That, how should I know?"
He raised his head, the two of them looked at each other in mid-air, and Jiang Ting spread his hands helplessly after a while: "All of these things you're assuming now are meaningless. How do you know that those two people are just bold? On the abandoned highway, when the police rescue arrived that night, on the surface, there were only two motorcyclists who came out to rescue Jack of Diamonds, but in fact, there was a whole convoy of drug traffickers lurking in the distance. It's hard to predict whether the police would be able to escape unscathed if a fight broke out…"
"I recalled it many times afterwards," Yan Xie interrupted him, "The two of them didn't seem to have backup that day on the rooftop."
The surroundings were quiet, Jiang Ting was speechless for a moment, and finally said: "Then we can only speculate that when King of Spades and Jack of Diamonds went to the rooftop of Hu Weisheng's house, they were very sure that no police would come."
——They have insiders, and are well aware of the progress of the police investigation.
In other words, Jiang Ting's appearance on the rooftop with Yan Xie was really unexpected for them.
"Could it be that the package of samples that Hu Weisheng hid was not the same thing as the 'blue gold' circulating on the black market?" Yan Xie suddenly said, "So they must immediately take away and destroy this package of samples, so much so that they can't even let other people do it for them?
As soon as the words were spoken, he realized that this assumption didn't make sense. The confessions of Ding Jiawang's drug-making gang had already been mutually corroborated. This package of samples was stolen by Hu Weisheng from the main goods, and its chemical composition should not have any special features.
Yan Xie's thinking couldn't help but diverge a little—what if the importance of the blue-gold sample wasn't reflected in the chemical composition but in other aspects?
He tried his best to recall the scenes that happened on the rooftop through the fog of memory to clearly see the package of drugs that were in Jiang Ting's hand at that time. Just as an unusual impression was about to emerge from the depths of his mind, his thinking was interrupted by Jiang Ting:
"By asking this now, are you trying to confirm whether this Burmese-Chinese is the Jack of Diamonds or not?"
"Huh?"
Jiang Ting pointed to the phone screen and said, "He is."
Yan Xie came back to his senses and his eyebrows twitched.
"Do you remember what I said that after discovering the existence of the new fentanyl compound Blue Gold, I independently investigated this huge drug cartel? Several different informants have mentioned the existence of this Burmese to me. I guess maybe because they both have antisocial personalities and are of similar age, King of Spades trusts this little brother and bodyguard, but I can't be sure whether he is the second in command or the third in command under the King of spades—in other words, I don't know whether he's Queen or Jack."
Jiang Ting finally put down the white porcelain spoon, signalled for the waiter to come forward and take away the empty porridge bowl, then rinsed his mouth with hot water, and continued: "Since I wanted to destroy this group, first I had to figure out its internal structure, but it took a long time because the whereabouts of the King of Spades and the Burmese were so difficult to determine that I couldn't even get any image data… It wasn't until later that an undercover agent named 'Rivet' finally managed to break into the group."
Jiang Ting's voice suddenly paused for a moment when he mentioned Rivet.
Yan Xie stared into his eyes from the side, without urging.
"The information from 'Rivet' helped me determine that the Queen of Hearts was someone else." After a moment, Jiang Ting finally took a deep breath and said hoarsely: "In a nutshell, their division of labor is like this: King of Spades controls all decisions, Queen of Hearts is responsible for the execution of part of the plan, and Jack of Diamonds ensures that everyone faithfully carries out King of Spades' orders to the end. At the same time, he has the authority of supervision, aftermath, punishment, silence, and so on, and he is behind many bloody crimes."
"According to this, the Queen of Hearts' participation rate seems to be the lowest?" Yan Xie suddenly asked.
Jiang Ting raised his eyebrows: "Because Rivet once said that she is a woman."
Yan Xie didn't expect this and was stunned.
"Rivet was a very skilled and brave undercover agent. He was once in direct contact with the Queen of Hearts. Many of the tips passed to the police were stolen from her." Jiang Ting raised the corner of his mouth, although it was a smile, it didn't look like a smile at all: "Including the drug trade when Gongzhou Plastic Factory exploded three years ago."
—Gongzhou Plastic Factory Explosion!
Yan Xie's face changed slightly.
The pot of strong tea served by the waiter was already very cold, but Jiang Ting didn't seem to feel the bitterness and drank the green tea residue in the cup in one gulp. The two of them were silent for about a minute or so before Yan Xie finally made up his mind and asked, "Was the information from Rivet wrong three years ago, or was there a traitor who sent a message to the Queen of Hearts, which led to your… police operation to be a complete failure."
As soon as he said the words, he realized that he had just asked Jiang Ting the most sensitive question in his life.
Jiang Ting pressed his palm and coughed a few times, waved his hand to indicate that was fine, and then raised his head to look at Yan Xie with a hint of ridicule in his eyes: "—If I knew who the traitor was, how would I still be patiently sitting here today?."
The sarcasm didn't seem to be directed at Yan Xie, but rather toward himself.
Yan Xie didn't know what to say for a while, but Jiang Ting seemed to be talking to himself, saying, "If you don't kill them both, how can you expose all the secrets of this drug cartel to the world."
Yan Xie's mobile phone rang, breaking the demonic silence. He opened the message, got up, and said, "I should go back. The visual investigation finally found some clues about Wang Xingye in the security surveillance. Guess how this fat man escaped from the police's net?"
Jiang Ting looked up, only to see Yan Xie gritting his teeth and saying, "F*ck, by pedaling a bicycle!"
"..." Jiang Ting grabbed the G65 key: "I'll take you back."
But before he got up, Yan Xie pressed his shoulders back down: "You just drank cold tea, it's not good for your stomach, so you need to warm it up." Then he beckoned to the waiter: "You have a good soup base for boiling porridge. Get a small cup of warm clear soup without oil and put the bill on me."
Jiang Ting gave up and asked, "Are you still working overtime tonight?"
Yan Xie turned his head and gave him a casual smile: "Can't sleep alone?"
"... "
Be good," Yan Xie leaned down and whispered in his ear, "I promise to sleep with you every night once the case is solved."
The waiter just happened to turn around, and his mouth changed into an O shape on the spot. Jiang Ting held his forehead expressionlessly, only Yan Xie signed the bill and took a taxi back to the city bureau in a dashing manner.
It wasn't until his figure completely disappeared outside the restaurant that Jiang Ting slowly put down his hand and stared at the delicious and clear hot soup in front of him, his calm face a little hazy in the dense heat.
The waiter stood far away from the seat, peeking at this handsome man whose age couldn't be determined.
Jiang Ting noticed the curious gaze but was too lazy to respond.
Just like pressing rewind and replaying a movie, every scene and line just flashed through his mind, his soul seemed to be stripped from his body and suspended in mid-air. He repeatedly pondered on the slightest changes in his tone from an outsider's point of view until he was sure there were no imperfections.
After an unknown amount of time passed, the waiter boredly studied the delicate fringe on the curtains, and suddenly caught a glimpse of the good-looking guest moving — he picked up the soup spoon that had been left standing for a long time, and finally slowly took a sip from the soup that had long since lost its heat.
"Sir, would you like to change to a hot bowl?" the waiter hurriedly stepped forward and asked.
Unexpectedly, the guest just shook his head, without even saying "no", he finished the cold soup spoonful by spoonful.
...…
At midnight.
Dark clouds rolled and the wind howled. A streak of lightning flashed across the dark night over Gongzhou, and a few seconds later, a dull thunder rolled across the sky, and torrential rain poured down in an uproar.
On the rooftop of the apartment building, the iron door was pushed open with a bang.
A chunky man in a dark green raincoat staggered, his rubber shoes filled with water stepped into the mud, and made a squeaking sound. However, he didn't pay attention to the wretchedness all over his body, clutching the folding umbrella that had already been bent back, he walked forward for a while on the rooftop that was flooded by the torrential rain. He finally found a place where he could barely hide from the rain. He curled up and sat down, wiping the sweat and water from his face heavily.
"Little bitch, little bitch…" He took off his rubber shoes, poured out the water in them, and muttered, "I can't kill you now, wait until Laozi can kill you…"
Boom——
Another round of lightning followed by rolling thunder shook the ground, and the world instantly became brighter.
Wang Xingye's movements suddenly stopped, and the blood in his whole body turned into ice in an instant, his face becoming as pale as a living ghost.
——In the open space in front of him, at some point in time, seven or eight people were standing in black clothes with hoods covering their faces. Their faces and hands were hidden behind ponchos, like zombies crawling out of their graves on a rainy night, standing straight up and surrounding him in the middle.
"…No, no," Wang Xingye crawled back with his hands and feet convulsively, his whole body shivering violently: "Go away, you wouldn't dare to do anything here, you wouldn't dare…Go away! Go away!!"
A deep and pleasant voice sounded from behind the crowd: "Why?"
The "zombies" turned sideways, and in the middle of the rooftop, A-Jie held a gun in his right hand and a black umbrella in his left. Under the umbrella, there was a man in black clothes and black pants whose face couldn't be seen. He seemed to be looking at Wang Xingye with a smile.
Wang Xingye's eyes stopped moving the moment he saw the other party, trembling so much that his eyes almost fell out of the sockets. His tone was shaking so much that it was hard to even say a sentence: "Impossible… spare me, spare me…impossible…"
"Why won't we dare to do it here?" The King of Spades repeated politely like a gentleman.
"Forgive me!" Wang Xingye screamed hoarsely: "I didn't want to kill that little girl! I really didn't! It was my fault for crashing a police car in Jiangyang County, but it was only for self-protection! Last year, that girl surnamed Li saw me! Please spare my life! Spare my life—!"
Wang Xingye rolled and crawled on the ground, trying to hug the King of Spades' thigh, but he was kicked away by A-Jie into the muddy water.
The King of spades squatted down slowly, looked at the fat man who was rolling and breathing in pain, and asked with a smile, "Did you see that policeman?"
Wang Xingye was as pale as a corpse and nodded while trembling.
"What's your opinion?"
The fat man surnamed Wang didn't expect him to ask such a question. It took several seconds for him to react, his mouth opened and closed comically, and he didn't know what to say: "I… saw… the police…I didn't know he was…"
"Look," said the King of Spades regretfully, "You can't even say a word of flattery, so what reason do I have to spare your life."
King of Spades stood up amidst the terrified howl of the fat man and moved forward. Several "zombies" immediately stepped forward to support Wang Xingye, who was rolling on the ground, and forcibly dragged him to the railing on the edge of the roof.
A-Jie quickly caught up with the umbrella, and asked in a low voice, "How should we deal with him, Boss?"
"Committed suicide in fear of punishment."
A-Jie immediately turned his head and gave a look to signal his subordinate to leave.
"Then Boss, what about the other finishing touches?"
King of spades crossed the roof washed by the night rain and came to the entrance of the dark corridor. He swiped the rain on his shoulders indifferently: "The police will help us take care of it."
A-Jie nodded.
"It's much more convenient and safe to let the right people do the right things than to do everything yourself." The King of Spades laughed and said, "Let's go."
A few minutes later, in the dark, under the apartment building, the two figures came out of the corridor and walked to a black Sedan waiting quietly not far away. A-Jie hurriedly opened the back door.
King of Spades leaned over and got in, and at that moment, the wind whistled behind their ears, and a figure fell straight from the roof, instantly turning into a splash of flesh and blood—
Bang!
The doors closed, and blood splashed on the windows. But the heavy rain washed it away into a reddish, twisted mist.
The car started to drive into the distance, the red taillights disappeared into the night, and after a long time, the streetlights finally turned on one by one.
Translator's Note:
(1) Ivory: A hard creamy-white substance composing the main part of the tusk of the elephant, walrus, or narwhal, often used to make ornaments and other articles.
(2) Bo: Means Leader/Commander/General in Burmese.