The enormous buildings of Red Star Machinery Factory were covered in rust, and the smokestack jutted crookedly into the sky like a finger pointing toward the past.
Su Ran sat on the large stone at the factory entrance engraved with the five characters “Red Star Machinery Factory,” holding a roasted potato in her hands.
She had bought it from a roadside vendor on her way here. The stall owner, an elderly man, had seen a young girl traveling alone in the middle of the night and generously given her an extra one.
She broke the hot potato in half. One half she tucked inside her coat against her chest to keep warm, while she slowly ate the other. The sweet aroma of starch spread through her mouth, driving away some of the chill of the late night.
She had already been waiting here for three hours.
During those three hours, she checked her watch every ten minutes. Her fingertips repeatedly rubbed over the backup phone in her pocket. She would turn the screen on, then off again. Several times, the slightest rustle of wind through the grass made her jump to her feet and stare toward the railway tracks in the north. Yet she was afraid any movement would attract the Bai family’s search teams combing the mountain, so she could only grip the steel rod in her hand and crouch back down. Cold sweat dampened the back of her neck again and again. She was not afraid of waiting. She was only afraid that the person she was waiting for would never come.
She knew Fu Yechuan would definitely go to the Bai family.
And she knew something would definitely happen to him.
She had gambled that he would flee into the northern mountains. The terrain there was the most complicated and best suited for escaping pursuit. Using the highly capable “data phone,” she had combed through satellite maps and historical planning maps covering a ten-kilometer radius around Yun Mountain, eventually discovering this forgotten corner of the world.
At four in the morning, a faint, irregular sound drifted from the abandoned railway tracks in the distance.
Su Ran shot to her feet, stuffed the remaining half of the potato back into her pocket, and stared unblinkingly into the darkness. Her knuckles had turned white from gripping so tightly.
A figure slowly emerged from the shadows.
Limping! Moving slowly.
Yet every step was remarkably steady.
It was Fu Yechuan.
He looked even more bedraggled than when he had left. Several tears split his work clothes. Mud and blood streaked his face and hands. The left leg of his pants had been ripped open, revealing an ankle swollen to the size of a steamed bun.
Su Ran practically sprinted toward him. Her shoes skidded across the gravel, and she nearly twisted her ankle.
“What happened to your foot?”
She supported him immediately. A strong smell of blood and dirt hit her nose. Her brows knit tightly together, yet her hands moved with extreme care, afraid of hurting his injuries.
“I twisted it by jumping off a building.”
Fu Yechuan’s voice was hoarse, his cracked lips peeling from dehydration. Only after seeing that it was her did the tension stretched across his shoulders all night finally ease by the slightest degree.
Su Ran asked no further questions. Supporting one of his arms, she helped him over to the large stone and sat him down. Then she crouched and carefully rolled up his pant leg.
The swollen ankle had turned dark purple and black, making for a shocking sight.
“The bone might be fractured,” she said.
“I won’t die from it.”
Su Ran pulled out the roasted potato she had kept warm against her chest all night and shoved it into his hands.
“Eat.” Fu Yechuan stared at the potato for a moment.
He accepted it, but didn’t eat immediately. He simply held it.
The warmth seeped into his palms, so hot that his fingertips almost felt numb.
Ever since the Fu family had gone bankrupt, every bite of food he ate had to be checked repeatedly for poison. Everything handed to him came with hidden motives and calculations. It had been far too long since someone had given him something so simple, so warm, and so completely free of ulterior motives.
“The receipt is dealt with.”
Suppressing the bitterness in his throat, he reported the good news.
“The direct evidence in Bai Weiwei’s possession is gone.”
“I guessed as much.”
Su Ran rummaged through her bag and pulled out a small first-aid kit. She had bought it at a pharmacy in the station while purchasing train tickets. Inside were iodine solution, gauze, and bandages.
“But she won’t give up. Even without the receipt, she still has the fabricated chain of evidence. It’s flawed, but as long as someone inside the Procuratorate cooperates, they can still open a case.”
“Which is why we need to crush her completely before she has time to react.”
Fu Yechuan peeled the potato and took a huge bite.
He ate quickly and hungrily, as though trying to replenish every ounce of energy he had burned away. The sweet warmth of the starch slid down into his stomach, and even the pain in his ankle seemed to lessen.
Su Ran dipped a cotton swab into iodine and began treating the wounds on his hands.
His palms had been shredded by gravel, several cuts deep enough to expose the flesh beneath. The moment the iodine touched the wounds, his body stiffened noticeably, yet he didn’t make a sound.
Su Ran’s fingertips accidentally brushed against the calluses in his palm.
Both of them paused for half a second.
Pretending nothing had happened, she lowered her head and continued disinfecting the wounds, though the tips of her ears quietly grew warm.
“So how do we pin her down?” Su Ran asked without stopping her work.
“Shen Zhixing.”
Chewing his potato, Fu Yechuan spoke through a mouthful of food.
“He’s our blade. Right now, Bai Weiwei is holding that blade in her hand. What we need to do is make it turn around.”
“You want to win him over?”
“Not win him over.”
Fu Yechuan swallowed.
“We’re going to give him a choice he can’t refuse. He’s afraid of prison, so we’ll give him a way out. He wants to protect himself, so we’ll give him a chance to stab Bai Weiwei in the back.”
“Right now, Bai Weiwei is probably guarding him more carefully than her own life. How do we contact him?”
Fu Yechuan finished the last bite of potato and brushed the crumbs from his hands.
He pulled out the phone containing the evidence, powered it on, and opened a file.
It was the financial transaction record documenting Bai Weiwei’s bribery of a judge.
Meanwhile, at the Bai family villa at the foot of the mountain, Bai Weiwei had just smashed her third limited-edition tea set.
One of her subordinates rushed in, drenched in sweat, reporting that they had searched the entirety of Yun Mountain and hadn’t found even a trace of Fu Yechuan.
She immediately slapped him across the face. Her carefully manicured nails dug into his flesh as she screamed so hard her voice cracked.
“Useless trash! Keep searching! Dig three feet into the ground if you have to, but find him!”
What she never expected was that the person she couldn’t find after turning all of Yun Mountain upside down was sitting calmly elsewhere.
“Send this to someone.”
Fu Yechuan handed the phone to Su Ran.
“Who?”
“South City Discipline Inspection Commission, Team Two Leader, Gao Jianmin.”
Su Ran’s fingers paused over the screen.
She knew that name.
In the original novel, Gao Jianmin was one of the key figures responsible for bringing down the Bai family’s power later in the story. He was known as an iron-faced, incorruptible figure.
But he was also extremely cautious. Without concrete evidence, he would never make a move.
“This transaction record clearly shows the money trail, but without direct corroborating evidence, Gao Jianmin may not believe it,” Su Ran said.
“He will.”
Fu Yechuan gazed toward the horizon where the first pale light of dawn was spreading.
“Because the chief judge who handled the Fu family’s bankruptcy case is Gao Jianmin’s longtime rival. They’ve been fighting each other for years. Gao Jianmin has always been looking for leverage against him.”
Su Ran immediately understood.
Fu Yechuan wasn’t trying to make Gao Jianmin investigate Bai Weiwei directly.
He was using Gao Jianmin to pressure the judge.
In official circles, pressure was often subtle, yet devastatingly effective.
As long as Gao Jianmin took this transaction record and invited that judge for a quiet “chat,” the judge would understand immediately that he’d been sold out.
And what would a betrayed judge with power do?
He would bite back. He would shift all responsibility onto the bribe-giver, Bai Weiwei.
“This move will force Shen Zhixing off Bai Weiwei’s ship.”
Su Ran pieced the entire chain of logic together.
“If the judge turns against her, the fabricated evidence case will be re-examined. All the tampering Shen Zhixing did will come to light. If he doesn’t want to go to prison, his only option is to confess first and become a cooperating witness.”
“Exactly.”
Fu Yechuan looked at her.
For the first time, there was unmistakable approval in his eyes.
“When that happens, he’ll come to us himself.”
Using an anonymous email account, Su Ran encrypted the financial records and sent them to Gao Jianmin’s publicly listed work email.
She left no identifying information.
In the body of the email, she wrote only a single sentence:
“A token of allegiance for Team Leader Gao. The Bai family is next.”
After sending it, she erased every trace of her activity, even clearing the browser history completely.
By then, daylight had fully arrived.
The first ray of sunlight struck the rusted iron gates of Red Star Machinery Factory, reflecting golden light.
Su Ran wrapped a bandage around Fu Yechuan’s ankle, securing it firmly. She even left an adjustable loop, worried that tying it too tightly might affect blood circulation.
“Where are we going next?” she asked.
“Back to Hai City.”
Fu Yechuan braced himself against the ground and stood.
He took two tentative steps. The sharp pain in his ankle instantly brought beads of sweat to his forehead, yet he didn’t even frown.
“The most dangerous place is the safest place. The Bai family won’t expect us to return.”
“We’re currently South City’s most wanted fugitives. How exactly are we getting back? Walking all the way there on that foot?”
She pointed at his swollen ankle and couldn’t resist taking a jab at him.
Fu Yechuan said nothing.
Limping toward a corner of the factory grounds, he stopped beside a battered motorized three-wheeler. Half a cartload of rotten cabbages still sat in the back.
Lifting the tarp covering the seat, he pulled out a set of keys hidden underneath and jingled them.
The metal clinked brightly.
“I hid these while scouting yesterday. The owner is Old Wang from the village below the mountain. He grows cabbages. I paid him two hundred yuan to borrow it. I’ll return it afterward.”
He twirled the keys.
“We’re taking this.”
Su Ran stared at the three-wheeler.
It looked even more battered than a Wuling Hongguang, with dried mud splattered along the sides of the cargo bed.
She was speechless for a long moment.
“You know how to drive this?”
“When I was fourteen, I beat professional racers on a mountain road while riding my dad’s Harley.”
Fu Yechuan swung himself onto the three-wheeler and turned the key.
The engine erupted into a violent coughing fit.
Putt putt putt putt!
It sputtered for a long while before reluctantly starting.
The exhaust blasted directly into Su Ran’s face.
“Get in.”
He looked back at her.
His bangs fluttered in the wind. Mud and injuries still covered his face, yet somehow he looked outrageously arrogant.
Suddenly, Su Ran felt like laughing.
She tried holding it back.
Failed! The corners of her lips curled high.
Jumping into the cargo bed, she found the cleanest spot she could beside the rotten cabbages and sat down.
“Fu Yechuan.”
“Mm?”
“You could ride a Harley at fourteen. Can you drift a three-wheeler now?”
Fu Yechuan shot her a glare through the rearview mirror.
Yet the tips of his ears quietly reddened.
He didn’t answer. He simply twisted the throttle.
The three-wheeler rattled out of the abandoned factory and merged onto the empty national highway bathed in morning light.
The cargo bed bounced violently.
Su Ran was tossed from side to side. At one point she nearly flew out entirely and hurriedly grabbed the side rail.
Without turning around, Fu Yechuan noticeably reduced his speed.
A moment later, he tossed out a casual remark.
“Hold on tighter. If you fall off, I’m not paying your medical bills.”
The smell of rotten cabbage wasn’t exactly pleasant, though mixed with the scent of fresh morning grass, it wasn’t unbearable.
Leaning against the side panel, Su Ran watched Fu Yechuan’s back.
His shoulders were broad.
His white shirt had been torn open, exposing the firm lines of muscle underneath. The wind billowed the shirt behind him like the wings of an eagle spread wide.
She thought to herself that this was probably the coolest ride she had ever taken in her life.
The scent of cabbage in the wind smelled better than any luxury car fragrance.
The person beside her brought more comfort than any predetermined plot ever could.
Following him toward Hai City like this, it felt as though she could charge headlong through mountains of blades and seas of fire, no matter what awaited them ahead.