Ten minutes later, Yan Xie jogged back on the sidewalk under the moonlight with two steaming plastic bags.
"What are you doing here!" Yan Xie opened the passenger door, and raised his chin arrogantly at Yang Mei: "Go, sit in the back, the front seat is mine!"
"..." Yang Mei looked at Yan Xie, who was nearly 1.9 meters tall, swallowed her anger, and went to the back seat.
Yan Xie immediately got into the car, put the plastic bag that gave off a strong aroma on Jiang Ting's lap, and proudly said with his tail raised, "Look, your husband especially… No, I mean don't you see what I bought you on the way back from picking up the lighter?"
Unable to hold back the smile in his eyes, Jiang Ting opened the plastic bag.
The dim car lights reflected two boxes of oily red pepper-fried bacon, as well as a few fragrant handmade steamed buns that were fresh out of the pan.
Originally, they were going to go to the county town for dinner, but now there was no need for it anymore. They sat in the car with the heater on, eating steamed buns and bacon, and the window was covered with white fog.
"Take another two bites. You're not in good health, so don't be afraid of the oil." Yan Xie took a wet tissue and carefully wiped the corners of Jiang Ting's oily mouth. Jiang Ting glanced at the back seat, only to see Yang Mei eating furiously with her head lowered. So he suddenly tilted his head and quickly kissed the inside of Yan Xie's tough wrist.
It was just a brief contact between the lips and the skin, but Yan Xie's heart was suddenly numb as if countless tiny electric currents were bursting along with fireworks, and he couldn't help reaching out to Jiang Ting's clothes.
"What are you doing?" Yang Mei raised her head in the back seat and immediately raised her feathers vigilantly.
Yan Xie paused and explained calmly, "I will give you an on-site lesson. Look, if you are looking for a boyfriend, you have to find someone like me who is sensible, caring, mature and stable, understand? Learn a little bit."
"..." Yang Mei gritted her teeth, but exploitative people were soft-spoken and short-handed. I'll endure it, She thought in her heart and continued to bow her head to eat.
Yan Xie thought it wasn't enough, so he continued to stimulate her with his tone and sweetly persuaded Jiang Ting: "Eat two more pieces of meat; it's not fat. You're too thin, you should consume more meat for protein. There's a lot more in the box anyway. Come on, open your mouth, ah—"
Yang Mei keenly heard the word "more meat" and suddenly raised her head again, and she immediately became enlightened.
"Wait, why is there so much meat in your box?" The chopsticks in Yang Mei's hands were trembling, and she questioned: "How is there supposed to be so much meat in the first place, why is my box full of peppers?!"
Jiang Ting: "..."
Yang Mei: "..."
Yan Xie hurriedly pushed her back to the back seat: "Mei Mei, you're a big girl, and you're not even married. It's very important to keep your body in shape. Dad was actually thinking about your weight…"
Mei Mei rejected her father's kindness and said that she didn't care about her weight. Under the cover of Jiang Ting's closed eyes, she pulled a few chopsticks of bacon over to her bowl, shrinking greedily into the back seat of the car. Yan Xie was heartbroken and sighed again and again, thinking that this big girl would never be able to get married.
Yang Mei flicked her chopsticks to tell him not to worry; anyway, even if she still still couldn't get married after many years, she would just stick with Brother Jiang for a lifetime.
"..." Yan Xie stared at her for a long time and then said angrily: "When I get back to Jianning, I will ask someone to find a live-in-son-in-law for you!"
Yang Mei ate the steamed buns happily, with half of her face bulging and swallowing hard like a hamster. Then she pulled out a tissue and said that she wanted to relieve herself, so she went out from the back door with a flashlight in hand. Boss Yang was wearing high heels like a fully-armed female soldier, and as soon as she got out of the car, she stumbled and almost fell down, nearly forming a human-shaped pit on the ground.
"Be careful!" Yan Xie rushed outside and shouted: "The eldest daughter of the family is so unreserved, openly saying that she needs to go to the toilet?!"
Yang Mei shouted loudly without turning her head back: " Brother Jiang, come and help me to keep watch?!"
Jiang Ting coughed under Yan Xie's sharp gaze, pretending not to hear anything, and sat in the driver's seat honestly.
Yang Mei walked slowly into the woods beside the mud road. Yan Xie only saw the flashlight stopped somewhere and was about to criticize his former love rival's wild style, when suddenly out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the flashlight swaying violently, and then Yang Mei seemed to had suddenly lifted her pants and jump into the distance, and there was the loud sound of footsteps in the woods.
"What's wrong with her?"
Yan Xie's question just came up, only to hear Yang Mei's hysterical screaming: "Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh someone is peeping!
The two looked at each other, and Yan Xie said suspiciously: "She is… doing it intentionally."
The next moment Yang Mei roared straight up to the sky to answer his question: "I'll beat you to death! Don't run!!"
Yan Xie and Jiang Ting looked at each other and pushed the door to get out of the car at the same time and ran hurriedly.
The dark woods were very rugged, and they didn't know how far they ran before they saw the flashlight flickering in front of them. Yan Xie ran hurriedly, and sure enough, Yang Mei was angrily carrying her high heels: "There! Right there! Hurry up! He ran in that direction!"
Yan Xie grabbed the flashlight with his hands, hurriedly looked at Jiang Ting, telling him to stay where he was with Yang Mei, and then chased after the person.
Jiang Ting quickly glanced up and down at Yang Mei: "Are you alright?"
"No, it's alright," Yang Mei blushed and panted, "I just squatted down and heard a sound over there, as if someone stepped on a branch not so far away. I immediately chased after him, he must have been a peeping person. He dared to run away after seeing me, scared me to death…"
Jiang Ting thought that your first reaction after discovering the person was not to call for help but to chase after him and beat him. You're really one of a kind. It's hard to say who was frightened more, you or the peeper…
"Don't run!" Yan Xie roared, "Stop!"
The flashlight flickered, and the prey in front fled in a hurry, only reflecting his black hoodie and trousers. For some reason, Yan Xie felt that the figure was a little familiar, especially the posture when running, which somehow reminded him of a similar scene not long ago. It was downstairs of the community, the night before they went to Gongzhou from Jianning—
That stalker!
He actually followed all the way here?!
"Don't run!" Yan Xie scolded in a flash: "I've recognized you! It's you!"
As expected, the stalker obviously reacted as soon as the voice fell, and he was confused and almost tripped over the bushes.
Yan Xie flew straight toward him and hugged his stalker. In the darkness, he only felt the sky and the earth spinning, and the two rolled down the hillside together in a huddle, and because of countless branches in the way, Yan Xie began to see stars.
Bang—a few seconds later, they crashed on the ground, and before Yan Xie could recover from the dizziness, he felt a severe blow to his abdomen. The stalker kicked him away, got up, and wanted to run!
"M*therf*cker!" Yan Xie immediately stretched out his leg to trip the man, making him fall face-first into the ground. He jumped up and held his opponent by the waist on the ground. He punched him a few times from left and right, just like official Lu beating Zhen Guanxi, roaring while fighting: "Dare to attack your father! Dare to attack your father!!"
"..." The man covered his face and struggled desperately.
"Yan Xie!" Jiang Ting arrived and staggered down the hillside: "Are you alright?"
Yan Xie didn't look back: "It's alright, grab this grandson, and be careful not to fall!" He punched the stalker's temple so hard that there was even a slight sound of squeezing flesh. Immediately after, he picked up the other side's shirt: "F*ck eighteen generations of your ancestors, you were also the one who followed my car that day, right? Downstairs in my community was also you, right?!"
Jiang Ting was afraid that he would kill him, so he hurried forward to stop him: "Okay, it's alright, where's the flashlight?"
Yan Xie stretched out his hand and groped around, grabbed the flashlight, and turned it on with a snap.
At this time, the stalker had been beaten to the point of being unable to fight back. He could only cover his face and groan on the ground. Facing the flashlight that suddenly pierced his eyes, he immediately groaned and turned his face away, indistinctly cursing fiercely.
"D@mn, you still—" Yan Xie grabbed the man's hand that was covering his face, but when he saw the blue and purple face, he was stunned in disbelief:
"…Fang Zhenghong?!"
Like a thunderbolt from the sky on a sunny day, Yan Xie was smashed to the point of tenderness on the outside, and even Jiang Ting was stunned.
Hundreds of kilometers away from Jianning, at the bottom of a rural hillside, the vice-captain of the criminal investigation division pressed the captain of the anti-drug division, scolding and beating him, and next to him was a former division captain from Gongzhou who was stunned. This scene suddenly became particularly ridiculous.
"￥%￥@#…" Fang Zhenghong didn't know whether it was anger, embarrassment, or just being beaten and unable to speak. He muttered words that only he could understand and glared at him: "It's me, what's the matter?! You've done something wrong yourself—"
Suddenly someone seemed to have hit the mute button, and he turned completely silent.
Yan Xie wanted to block his site, but he couldn't.
Fang Zhenghong stared straight at Jiang Ting with his mouth wide open, and the expression on his face that was flushed with anger suddenly became very funny. His mouth opened and closed, closed and opened, and he finally uttered a few words:
"You…you are Jiang Ting?!"
Jiang Ting raised his eyebrows and looked at Yan Xie.
"You, you," Fang Zhenghong gasped incoherently, his chest was like broken bellows whirring: "You're still alive?!"
...…
Early morning, the county guest house.
At dawn, the birds on the treetops outside the window were chirping. The shouts from the stalls selling breakfast downstairs outside the hotel were mixed with the jingling bells of electric cars and bicycles. The cold early winter wind was shuttling back and forth on the streets, vibrant and lively.
After Yang Mei finished freshening up, she sat by the bed and drew eyeliner in front of the mirror, staring at her eyes and opening her mouth in a twisted manner, and began to babble for the eighteenth time from last night to this morning:
"You say you are a good division leader, why do you have the bad habit of peeping at women going to the toilet?!"
Fang Zhenghong: "..."
Fang Zhenghong was tied to the other bedside on the double bed, with Yang Mei's leather gloves in his mouth. Judging from the squirming movements on his face, he probably really wanted to spit out the gloves and yell that I'm not, I didn't!
"He didn't," The door of the room was pushed open. Yan Xie, who was carrying a few bags of steaming breakfast, and Jiang Ting walked into the room, "His target was me."
Fried dough sticks, meat buns, eggs, sausage pancakes, soymilk… Yang Mei happily chose a bag of pancakes that were extraordinarily rich and fragrant. Just as she was about to reach for it, Yan Xie suddenly lifted the plastic bag over her head and joked, "Want to eat? Call me father!"
Yang Mei stood on tiptoe and stared at him, then rolled her eyes, and forced out a sweet and chilling smile: "Father is too old. How can Vice-captain Yan, who is in full bloom be a father? Obviously, it should be brother."
The name of the brother made Yan Xie content, and he was about to say something, only to hear Yang Mei shouting back and forth: "Isn't it, please —bro—ther?"
"..." Yan Xie's expression couldn't help but change in the next moment. He hurriedly stuffed a sausage pancake into Yang Mei's hand, turned around, and immediately rolled his eyes.
Yang Mei celebrated happily.
Ever since Jiang Ting entered the room, Fang Zhenghong couldn't help but look at him. Jiang Ting glanced back lightly, sat down, picked up a meat bun, and slowly ate it.
"How are you doing, wanna eat or not?" Yan Xie shook a bag of breakfast, and glared at Fang Zhenghong: "Nod if you want to eat."
Fang Zhenghong immediately snorted and turned his head fiercely.
Yang Mei said earnestly: "Yo, still stubborn. You said that you were a good division leader, lurking in the woods in the middle of the night. Even if it's not to peep at me, but for Yan Xie, it's also not good to peep at Vice-Captain Yan — do you understand?"
Judging from Fang Zhenghong's bulging eyes, he might be about to vomit blood.
"Don't tease him again, what will I do if he has a heart attack later." Yan Xie sat down opposite Fang Zhenghong, staring at his blood-red eyes, with a thoughtful expression.
Suddenly he said, "Your suspicion has not been cleared. Now, according to the regulations, your actions should've been restrained, making you unable to leave Jianning, right?"
Fang Zhenghong was expressionless.
"Chief Lu didn't control you, why?"
Fang Zhenghong remained silent.
Yan Xie slowed down: "Because he's convinced that you're innocent, or is it that you two are accomplices?"
"@#￥%*&(…"
As soon as he finished speaking, Fang Zhenghong immediately became red and roared roughly. Yan Xie pulled out the gloves, and the next moment his angry roar sounded, but the content of the roar surprised everyone:
"Stop pretending already, you two are on one side!"
Yan Xie was taken aback.
Jiang Ting's movements also stopped.
After a brief silence, Yan Xie immediately asked, "What did you say?"
Fang Zhenghong's pale face was abnormally red. It was hard to imagine how such a well-known sick person in the city bureau followed Yan Xie for so long, and how did he spare no effort to cross the province and city and follow him for hundreds of kilometers all the way to Yuejia Village?
What kind of profit could have tempted him to do so?
Yan Xie narrowed his sharp eyes. His eyes almost pierced through Fang Zhenghong's angry face and scraped into his bones. The suffocating stalemate lasted for several minutes before he slowly said: "What did the drug dealers promise you, for you to come and take my life?"
Fang Zhenghong let out a loud sneer.
Yan Xie didn't care and said, "Captain Fang, the sentence for stealing a police gun starts at ten years; you should know that."
Fang Zhenghong said coldly, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You don't know? Then I'll tell you. After the 1009 plastic factory explosion three years ago, Gongzhou set up a special investigation team. On January 10, the action team led by Yue Guangping came to the scene to rescue Captain Jiang and the undercover 'Rivet'. After the operation, Yue Guangping found that his gun was missing, but the police gun was not found in the entire city of Gongzhou." Yan Xie leaned forward and stared at Fang Zhenghong at close range, saying word by word, "Chief Lu told me that the rescue was a joint operation between Gongzhou and Jianning, and you were the leader of the team from Jianning."
Fang Zhenghong opened his mouth.
"As the deputy mayor, not just anyone can get close to Yue Guangping. Being the leader of the team, you not only have the opportunity to get close to him but also because of your status as the leader of Jianning, it was unlikely to be suspected by Yue Guangping after the gun was dropped. The time and the place were favorable, and there was even a motive for committing the crime. Would you like to explain it to us?"
Fang Zhenghong said angrily: "Nonsense! Why would I—"
"Because three years later, the gun appeared at the scene of the attack on the police in Jiangyang County," Yan Xie interrupted him briskly and sharply, saying: "The gunman followed the police car and shot me with the bullet from that gun."
Fang Zhenghong seemed to be like a rooster that had been strangled by the neck.
After a long while, he squeezed out a sentence: "I was at the city bureau the day you were shot…"
"No one said that the shooter was you, but the night the shooter was silenced, you, who were supposed to be on duty, disappeared." Yan Xie pulled away slightly, and a cold, fierce, and aggressive smile appeared on the corner of his mouth, like a hawk in the sky staring at the meat on the ground:
"Now, can you explain why you were following me for such a long time, Captain Fang?"
Fang Zhenghong's chest heaved up and down quickly. After repeating it about ten times, his chaotic thoughts like mud finally found a thread, and he turned sharply to Jiang Ting: "Then should you explain it too?"
Jiang Ting raised his eyes.
"You appeared here with Yan Xe, does it mean that you're also a drug dealer?!"
Anyone with a little logic in the criminal investigation would immediately feel that this sentence was extremely strange. Except for Yang Mei, who knew nothing about what was going on in the room, Jiang Ting and Yan Xie's eyes changed subtly.
——That's right, it was as if he knew that Jiang Ting was not a "drug dealer".
Jiang Ting pondered for a moment, and then slowly replied: "…No, I'm just accompanying family members."
Fang Zhenghong: "?"
Jiang Ting was about to say something when suddenly the phone rang.
"Qi." When he saw the call, he briefly said something to Yan Xie, then got up to answer the phone: "What's wrong?"
From the other side of the phone, there was Qi Sihao's panting and the peculiar ticking sound when the car was driving. He seemed very anxious and was a little speechless, but he still retained the instinct to contact the former leader immediately at the critical moment. It could be seen how much of a psychological shadow Jiang had left on him in those years.
The hotel room was silent, and after waiting for several seconds, a few people suddenly heard his shrill voice: "Someone—someone—"
Jiang Ting frowned.
"—Someone is going to kill me!"