CM | Chapter 1

With a boom, the tongues of fire surged upward, lighting up the night sky.

The already burning house exploded a second time, flames bursting outward, the searing heat scorching the red-hot beams.

Outside the blaze stood several local police officers. The lead officer, about forty, gave no order to move. He just stood there, staring at the scene.

At this rate, anyone inside was probably already burned to charcoal. Going in alive would just mean dying with them.

The fire department rushed over and started spraying water to fight the fire.

Water sprayed into the inferno, only to vanish almost at once. The ground shook violently, and a broken wall collapsed in front of everyone.

Xu Haizhen, a seasoned veteran, frowned as he pinched a cigarette between his fingers and listened to two nearby onlookers whispering.

“Word is this family lived here with a father and daughter. The dad smoked, drank, and gambled.”

“Exactly. A while ago they even said he was going to use his daughter as a gambling stake. What kind of people are they!”

“Hey, who knows whether those two made it out or not.”

“A man like that? Good riddance if he burned to death! It’s just a pity for the girl, she’s only sixteen…”

At that moment, a young police officer helped a girl of about sixteen or seventeen over.

“Captain Xu, this is the little girl who lives here. Her name is Du Tong. She just said her dad is still in the fire…”

Xu Haizhen looked at the girl.

She was thin and frail, her face haggard, her lips split open. Standing before the firelight, she trembled all over. Seeing that she was shaking like a leaf, the young officer pulled the military coat wrapped around her tighter.

The girl looked at Xu Haizhen, her voice shaking. “Uncle, my dad… has he been rescued…”

The firelight made her eyes glitter. Something restrained flickered in her pupils.

Xu Haizhen took a drag from his cigarette. His deep, shrewd eyes narrowed, the lines around them faintly showing, every one of them seasoned and sharp.

The moment the girl’s eyes met his, she dropped her gaze and let out a choked sob.

The onlookers and the young patrol officer all looked at her with sympathy.

Only Xu Haizhen said nothing, studying the girl while taking one drag after another, as if measuring something.

Soon, the ambulance arrived, and the girl was taken away.

Officer Liu Chun came over to Xu Haizhen. “Captain Xu, I’ve already asked around. That girl went out at night to buy something, and before she got back, the house had already exploded. Her dad was in the house at the time. Our initial suspicion is that it was caused by a gas leak.”

Xu Haizhen flicked the cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it twice with his toe.

“Wrong.”

Liu Chun froze. “Then what do you think, Captain Xu?”

“The blast point and the fire are both wrong. An ordinary gas explosion doesn’t do this much damage. Do you remember last year’s gas explosion in that residential area? Did it have even half this kind of force? What kind of gas is that damn strong?”

Liu Chun had no answer. Following Xu Haizhen’s train of thought, if it wasn’t a gas explosion, then what could it be? Was there something else in the house besides a gas leak, some other dangerous accelerant?

Xu Haizhen raised a finger and pointed at the sky. By now, the fire had mostly been put out, and the thick smoke in the air stung so badly that tears and snot came out together.

“And this smell, do you think it’s right? A drunken loser surnamed Du lives in a chemical plant or what, gets drunk and uses himself to do chemistry experiments? And that girl just now, did you notice…”

Liu Chun hurried to take up the thread. “I noticed. She was scared stiff.”

Xu Haizhen’s brows tightened, but he said nothing.

No, she wasn’t scared stiff.

The girl was indeed shaking, as if terrified, but that shaking could also be explained as excitement. Especially her eyes, there wasn’t the slightest trace of fear or dread, no weak-kneed panic from being frightened by the scene.

She didn’t even cry. Of course, people can be too shocked to cry, but Xu Haizhen didn’t think this girl was shocked to that point.

And that line of hers, “My dad, has he been rescued” sounded less like concern for her father’s safety and more like she was confirming the time of death.

But Xu Haizhen didn’t say any of this to anyone, at least not now. He couldn’t jump to conclusions before the facts were clear.

The fire hadn’t been completely extinguished yet, and the cause and point of origin still had to be confirmed. Even if that charred corpse had already been burned to carbonized dust, they still had to collect the dust and take it back for testing.

Most importantly, that girl was only sixteen.

Only sixteen, with the mind of a sixteen-year-old, the composure and judgment of a sixteen-year-old.

Could a pair of scrawny, stick-thin hands, a little body like a sheet of paper, be tied to the explosion in front of him?

Was that possible…

…

Looking again at the Du family old house, now collapsed into a heap, the air was thick with a suffocating stench. The neighbors who had been watching earlier had long since scattered. The crackling of the fire faded bit by bit, and the smoke was swept away by the wind.

The smell rolled all the way to the slope with the trees a hundred meters away.

Under the night sky, the trees on the slope stood packed together, their branches and leaves swaying in the wind, a dark mass in the gloom.

Along the steepest outer edge stood a rusted iron fence to keep passersby from accidentally stepping off.

Inside the fence stood two figures, one tall and one short, but both equally thin.

They wore light clothing. Their soft hair drifted in the wind, and their clothes carried a faint smell of chemical agents.

Seeing Du Tong get into the ambulance, the girl standing by the fence let out a soft breath. The hand that had been gripping the iron bars so tightly finally loosened. Her tiger’s mouth and palm were sore and numb from the strain, and the metal had left clear marks on her skin.

The girl flexed her fingers, then reflexively reached for the boy’s arm beside her, only to hear a dull grunt from his nose.

She froze, took out her phone and shone the light on him, only then discovering that the boy’s elbow had already been burned by chemical reagent corrosion. But because his nerves had been taut the whole time, he hadn’t felt the pain.

The girl pulled a bottle of mineral water from her bag and rinsed his wound.

The boy’s brows drew together slightly. His voice was hoarse. “I’m fine.”

The girl’s voice was tired too, but extremely calm. “It’ll leave a scar.”

The bottle of mineral water was emptied. The girl threw it on the ground, wrapped the boy’s elbow with a handkerchief, then lifted her eyes and met the boy’s deep-set sockets.

“Leave that kind of “evidence” behind, and none of us will be able to get away.”

The boy’s gaze circled her face once. When he spoke, his voice was calm. “Then cut out this piece of “evidence”.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the boy straightened up and took the girl by the hand. He walked in front, with her following behind, and the two of them made their way down the tree-covered slope at an unhurried pace.

Neither of them said a word along the way.

The hazy moonlight spilled over the ground beneath their feet. In their ears hummed the sirens of fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances, along with the sound of those broken walls burning in the blaze, a hiss and crackle.

At the instant of those two explosions, even the earth had trembled. Tree shadows rustled with a shiver. Flames spewed tongues of fire upward into the sky. In that moment, their hearts had been filled with an indescribable exhilaration, and at the same time, they were shaken by it.

And their souls, it seemed, had unknowingly been swept along by that mass of fire and dragged into the depths of hell.

…

Ten years later, Licheng.

As the city lights came on, a sudden burst of sharp braking sounded at the entrance of the nightclub called “Zijing Palace.” In the blink of an eye, a Land Rover swung its backside around and stopped crosswise in the middle.

The door opened, and the main man hopped out. It was a man, his long legs planted there with brazen arrogance, neon lights throwing shifting shadows across him and outlining the upright, solid lines of his body.

The doorman stepped forward to size him up, but he couldn’t see through the man’s background at a glance. Yet people who parked their ride so openly right in front of the entrance weren’t something you saw every day. Either he was a fool who didn’t know a thing about Zijing Palace’s backing, or he was just a complete idiot.

The doorman went up to this rather good-looking “complete idiot,” and just as he was about to speak, the man tossed the car keys into his hand.

The doorman reacted quickly and grabbed them. Before he could even blink, there was already a gold-stamped business card in his palm, so bright it almost blinded him.

When the doorman finally saw the words on it, the hairs on his body stood up. He immediately bent over and welcomed the man inside.

The man lifted his slender fingers and pulled off his sunglasses, the arms tucked into his back pocket. His thin lips curved slightly as he blurted out four words. “I’m looking for Lao Jin.”

Who was Lao Jin? He was the big boss behind Zijing Palace, known as Jin Ye.

People outside only knew that Zijing Palace belonged to Jin Ye. As for his full name, where this Jin Ye had sprung from, and how he dared set up such a flashy operation in this district, nobody knew. Even the staff inside Zijing Palace quietly guessed at his background and origins, certain that he must be well connected in both the legitimate and the underworld.

Jin Ye didn’t show up often. Even when he came to inspect business, it was at most two or three times a year, as if he didn’t care whether this palace lived or died. He had always been as elusive as a dragon that shows only its head and not its tail, and even people who came specifically to pay him a visit would only end up empty-handed.

Just so happened that today, Jin Ye was actually here.

The doorman’s heart jumped. Unable to see through the man’s background and not daring to be careless, he quickly led him inside and handed the business card to the security guard in the building, whispering a few words.

The security guard’s expression turned solemn. He glanced at the unfamiliar man standing in the light and shadow. The man was smiling at the corners of his mouth, but his eye sockets carried a chill. His sharp, deep features flickered in and out of view under the dim light. Though tall and lean, he was tough and capable, and the silk shirt pulled taut across the muscles of his arms gave him an unmistakably rough air.

News that an unfamiliar man had come to kick in the mountain gate and even handed over a gold-stamped business card spread all the way inside, but it didn’t reach Jin Ye, who was resting on the third floor. It was stopped halfway by the person in charge of Zijing Palace, Zhang Xiang.

Just that evening, Jin Ye had told Zhang Xiang that he would rest for two hours and then leave, and no visitors were to be seen.

Less than half an hour after those words, a business card had been handed in. On it were three words as big as beans, “Xu Haiqing.”

Xu Haiqing, of course Zhang Xiang knew.

He also knew exactly how hot that card was to handle. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been stuck between advance and retreat. He would have already told someone to throw that bastard who came knocking straight out.

Zhang Xiang felt his heart drum. After rolling his eyes for a bit, he told his men to lead the person to a private room on the second floor.

The bodyguard led the unfamiliar man upstairs and asked, “May I ask your surname?”

The man gave only one word, clear and flat. “Xu.”

“Mr. Xu, this way.”

Xu Shuo climbed the stairs all the way up, passed through the dim corridor on the second floor, and arrived at a private room with the door half-open.

The door opened from inside, and two more bodyguards came out, taking up position right by the doorway.

Xu Shuo glanced at them and stepped over the threshold, facing Zhang Xiang, who was sitting on the sofa.

Zhang Xiang stood up and met Xu Shuo’s eyes. His heart tightened, and for no reason at all he thought of another face. The contours of their features didn’t resemble each other in the slightest, but that aura, that murderous edge between the brows and eyes, was exactly the same as that person’s.

Zhang Xiang asked, “Mr. Xu, this should be our first meeting, right? I wonder what your relationship is with the owner of this business card…”

Xu Shuo didn’t wait for Zhang Xiang to offer him a seat. He dropped straight into the sofa, didn’t even lift his eyelids, as if he couldn’t see the bodyguards in the room staring at him in unison. He casually took a USB drive out of his pocket and set it on the glass coffee table.

Zhang Xiang couldn’t make sense of the play. “What do you mean by that?”

Xu Shuo said, “Take a look for yourself. After you’ve seen it, then decide whether you want to hand it to Lao Jin, and who it is that’ll do business with me.”

Zhang Xiang hesitated for two seconds. Thinking of the weight of that business card, and then considering the nerve and confidence this man had, he quickly had one of his subordinates bring a laptop and plugged in the USB drive in front of Xu Shuo.

There was only one folder on the drive, and the files inside all had to do with Zijing Palace. Outsiders wouldn’t understand, but the moment Zhang Xiang saw them, half his heart went cold.

He steadied himself, then without a word told all the bodyguards to leave the private room. At the same time, he pressed twice under the table, cutting off the communications and surveillance in the room.

That string of actions couldn’t help but tug up the corners of Xu Shuo’s lips.

The private room door was shut tight. Smoke curled all through the room, mixed with the smell of alcohol, but Zhang Xiang didn’t feel the slightest trace of drunken abandon. All he felt was cold, and a trembling fear hanging in midair.

Zhang Xiang took a breath and forced down the unease in his chest and the shiver rising along his spine. Only then did he carefully look at Xu Shuo, who was sitting on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other, fingers interlaced.

Zhang Xiang asked, “May I ask what this USB drive means, Mr. Xu?”

Xu Shuo lifted his chin. “Whatever you say it means, that’s what it means.”

It was as if Zhang Xiang had been grabbed by the throat. The words came out one by one. “Then please, enlighten me.”

Xu Shuo glanced at Zhang Xiang and laid it out. “Lao Jin’s business is not the kind that can stand in the light. He can’t come out and deal with the underworld himself, so he has to find other people to do it. Black or white, as long as it’s business, once it runs through here, it leaves this door clean. Of course, the news from all sides also gathers here. Lao Jin had you watch over this business, so it’s both his money vault and his fallback. That just shows how much he trusts you. Who would have thought that this kind of disloyal, double-faced bullshit was happening right under his nose? You took the resources Lao Jin gave you, profited off them for yourself, made money behind his back, and played both sides of the law. You’ve eaten until you’re good and stuffed over the years.”

What was on that USB drive was nothing else, just evidence of Zhang Xiang using Zijing Palace to make money and launder funds.

Setting tax evasion aside, just those shady money deals alone, if the day ever came when the fire could no longer be wrapped in paper, Zhang Xiang would rather hand himself over to the economic crime investigators than let Lao Jin find out.

Handled according to the law, he could still have life left in him, could still sit in prison and pay the fines. If Lao Jin’s rules were followed, then…

A buzzing went off in Zhang Xiang’s head, and he panicked a little.

But Zhang Xiang had climbed up from the bottom. He had seen big and small scenes before. Sitting there in silence for a moment, he quickly sorted out two paths in his head.

One was the road to survival, making some kind of business deal with this man surnamed Xu. Put plainly, that meant using money to buy off the evidence in his hands and shut his mouth.

As for the other path, of course it was the road to death, except the one who would die wasn’t Zhang Xiang.

Zhang Xiang steadied himself before asking, “You just said you wanted to do a deal with me. May I ask how exactly you plan to do that? I’d like to hear the details.”

Xu Shuo looked at him with a rather amused expression. “Mr. Zhang, I’m afraid you remembered wrong. What I said was, after you finish looking at what’s in there, you can decide whether to hand it to Lao Jin, and who it is that’ll do business with me.”

In other words, if Zhang Xiang didn’t want to be sensible, then the one who would see this stuff would be Lao Jin himself.

Zhang Xiang choked on the words. “You jest. How could things like this trouble Jin Ye? He’d skin me alive…”

“Mr. Zhang really is clever, and your head seems to have an extra eye. If, just now, you’d taken the “Xu Haiqing” business card and brought me straight to the third floor to see that old bastard surnamed Jin, by now you’d probably be wracking your brains trying to explain where these accounts came from.”

Xu Shuo lowered his crossed leg, propped both elbows on his thighs, picked up the cigarette case from the coffee table, and took out a cigarette, twirling it between his fingers.

“Since you’ve already picked this road for yourself, I’ll tell you my rules too. Simple. Either you pay money and hand over information to buy your life. I keep you safe for a year, and as long as you listen to me during that year, you won’t have to keep worrying about it afterward. Or you pay with your life. And if that old bastard surnamed Jin thinks one life isn’t enough, then your wife, your children, and your old mother can pay the interest.”

Xu Shuo’s tone was almost flat, with no rise or fall, but every word he spoke was like a knife dipped in poison, slicing into Zhang Xiang’s heart one cut at a time.

As he spoke, the cigarette in Xu Shuo’s hand was steadily planted in the ashtray, the lit end standing upright. Then, with the ashtray and all, he pushed it in front of Zhang Xiang, like a stick of incense before a grave.

It was as if Zhang Xiang’s two legs were already standing at the edge of a cliff. His heart thudded harder and harder, but he wasn’t the type to be frightened so easily. The second path he had sorted out in his head also became clearer and clearer. This man surnamed Xu had come alone, and there wasn’t a third pair of ears in the room. Even if he had communication or recording equipment on him, the signal-blocking devices installed in these private rooms would keep it out. The conversation just now couldn’t possibly leak out.

Thinking of that, Zhang Xiang calmed down quite a bit and asked again, “I’m not sure about this buying my life with money and information that you mentioned. How exactly is that supposed to work? If I pay, can you just close your mouth, and these pieces of evidence will never get out? With the way you’re playing this, won’t the rest of my life be in your hands, and you’ll be treating me like an ATM?”

Xu Shuo smiled faintly, his narrow eyes curling the inner corners as he began to explain to Zhang Xiang in all seriousness.

“Since this hole can be dug, it can also be filled. As long as you and I reach an agreement, I’ll naturally introduce you to a reliable accounting firm to help you sort through the books. How many loopholes can be filled with money, whether it’s cheaper to fill them or not, how much needs to be filled to settle things, by then someone will teach you step by step. You can judge for yourself whether you want to follow through. Some money just needs to be paid back to the tax bureau to make things go away. Why make trouble for yourself? Isn’t that right? As for those shady profit-sharing dealings of yours, I think you have your own way of clearing them up within a year. And if the dirty money you leave behind feels hot in your hands, you can put it toward charity. I also happen to know a few charitable foundations I can recommend. Donate it, and you’re building up karma for yourself. I guarantee that after a year, your little pool of dirty water will be cleaner than bleach.”

“…Huh?”

The more Zhang Xiang listened, the more stunned he became. “…The deal you’re talking about is helping me launder money?”

Zhang Xiang had long heard that those big shots, rich or powerful, all had their own ways of laundering money, like Xu Haiqing, who had been active in Licheng for years.

That woman was no simple character. She was over forty, a master of all sorts of methods, and had dabbled in every kind of backdoor route. She had also had a record when she was young, but they were only little sneaky petty offenses. Ever since she got her start, she had risen smoothly without ever suffering a setback, and her business had always been steady and clean.

But when it came to business, whether on the legitimate side or the underworld side, was there really anyone completely clean?

Zhang Xiang didn’t believe it.

People outside all said Xu Haiqing had expert guidance, powerful backers, and smart people helping her whitewash her assets. A “business model” polished to that level by a professional team was not something you could just imitate because you had money.

Come to think of it, when Zhang Xiang first got his start, he had also received Xu Haiqing’s help. He hadn’t met her again in all the years since, but he remembered it clearly and had thought that once he made it big, he would definitely pay her back. He just didn’t know if Xu Haiqing would still remember there was such a person by then.

That was why the sudden appearance of this man surnamed Xu today had shocked Zhang Xiang so much. A ridiculous thought quickly rose in his mind. Could this man surnamed Xu be one of the so-called “salesmen” outside, one of the people who helped Xu Haiqing whitewash her assets?

Uh, if that was the case, why had this Xu guy come here? Xu Haiqing had such a massive business to look after. Did he still have the leisure to come by and meddle in Zhang Xiang’s little side hustle?

What the hell was the difference between that and a middleman stuffing a little note through the door?

Wasn’t that a little too low-rent?

Or was it that, these days, business was hard to come by, and even the money-laundering industry had hit winter? Was everyone going downhill?

For a moment, Zhang Xiang was completely lost, even more confused than before.

Author’s note: I’m back to write a new story, darlings, did you miss me!

The style of the new story is a little different. The male lead shows up right at the start, and the female lead will come later~

This book is a suspense romance. There will be sugar, but it’s not the kind of sweet pet story that’s sweet, sweet, sweet all the way through, so if you only like pure fluff, please enter with caution.

All right, same old rules. Leave a comment and you’ll get a red packet. In general, updates will be daily. The update time is tentatively set for 13:16. If something comes up and I can’t update, I’ll post a notice in the chapter comments or on Weibo that day, muah~!