The East District Recycling Station was hidden at the very end of a dead-end road.
Two rusted iron gates were secured with chains, leaving only a narrow gap wide enough for a person to squeeze through sideways.
The yard was packed to the brim.
Flattened cardboard boxes were stacked taller than a person. Scrap appliances lay scattered everywhere, while discarded refrigerator shells formed small hills. Under the blazing sun, the plastic had softened, releasing a sickly sweet stench that invaded the nose.
After parking her bicycle, Su Ran glanced at her phone.
Only six minutes had passed since she called Old Chen.
Fourteen minutes remained.
Leaning the shared bike against the gate, she squeezed through the opening.
Rust from the chain scraped the hem of her T-shirt, but she didn’t look back.
The yard was larger than she had expected.
Directly ahead stood a row of metal sheds. Several sections of roofing were missing, allowing sunlight to pour through the holes and cast crooked patches of light across the ground.
Inside the sheds, the lighting was dim.
Su Ran stopped in the center of the yard and didn’t move any farther.
“Bai Jingshan.”
She called out once.
Her voice bounced through the empty yard, the returning echo sounding oddly distant.
The first thing that came from inside the shed was the screech of chair legs scraping across the floor.
Then came footsteps. More than one set.
Bai Jingshan emerged from the shadows.
He had changed into a dark blue polo shirt with a neatly folded collar, looking more like a man headed to a business dinner than someone conducting an abduction.
Two crew-cut men followed behind him.
They wore black T-shirts, their builds lean and powerful. Their posture was rigid, feet shoulder-width apart with their weight slightly forward, a habit common among former soldiers.
Only two members of the Cleanup Team had come.
“Miss Su, you’re faster than I expected.”
Smiling, Bai Jingshan stepped slightly aside.
Su Ran’s gaze moved past him and landed deeper inside the shed.
Fu Yechuan sat in a battered folding chair.
His hands were bound to the armrests with zip ties. Blood stained the corner of his mouth, and a dark purple bruise had swollen across his left cheekbone.
His collar had been pulled out of shape, exposing a fresh abrasion below his collarbone.
He looked up when he saw Su Ran.
There was no pain in his eyes.
No plea for help.
Only anger. Directed entirely at her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked hoarsely.
Ignoring him, Su Ran turned her attention back to Bai Jingshan.
“I’ve seen him. What do you want to talk about?”
Bai Jingshan carried over a folding stool, unfolded it in the middle of the yard, and sat down with one leg crossed over the other. The two crew-cut men stood on either side of him with their hands tucked into their pockets, concealing whatever they were holding.
“The fact that you came means you still remember this place.” Bai Jingshan stared at her as though flipping through old accounts.
Su Ran’s heartbeat quickened slightly.
This was the verification test.
“The last time you gave me the check, it was beside the second row of shelves in the shed.”
The detail hadn’t come from the original Su Ran’s memories. Those memories were far too blurred, leaving only a rough outline of the location.
She was gambling that Bai Jingshan himself couldn’t remember the exact spot.
The tension in his shoulders visibly eased.
“So you’re still you.” He smiled faintly. “That makes this strange. Since you’re still the same Su Ran, why did you suddenly change your mind? You refused the check and turned around to help Fu Yechuan instead.”
Su Ran stepped forward twice and stopped three meters away.
Sunlight streamed through a hole in the roof, falling perfectly between them and drawing a clear dividing line across the ground.
“Because your sister gave me a bad check.”
The smile on Bai Jingshan’s face barely changed.
Only his right index finger tapped once against his knee.
Su Ran caught the tiny movement.
He didn’t know. Bai Jingshan had no idea the check couldn’t be cashed.
Her heartbeat gradually steadied.
“You’re saying the check Weiwei gave you couldn’t be cashed?” His tone remained gentle, but his pitch rose slightly.
“A five hundred thousand yuan check. The issuing bank was Binjiang Rural Commercial Bank, Ancient City Branch.” Su Ran recited the details. “You can verify it yourself. The account didn’t have sufficient funds. There was never enough money to honor the check. Your sister never intended to pay me from the beginning.”
Bai Jingshan remained silent for three seconds.
Fu Yechuan’s gaze moved back and forth between them.
He didn’t speak.
“Bai Jingshan, let me ask you something.” Su Ran’s voice remained calm. “How many years have you been running errands for your sister?”
The smile on Bai Jingshan’s face faded.
“She tells you to warn me, and you come. She tells you to capture Fu Yechuan, and you do it. Yet she doesn’t even bother telling you whether a check is real or fake. What exactly does she think you are?”
“Miss Su.” Bai Jingshan rose from the stool, all traces of a smile gone. “Are you teaching me how to do my job?”
“I’m just telling you the truth.” Su Ran took half a step back, increasing the distance between them. “Bai Weiwei’s plan against Fu Yechuan wasn’t built on money, connections, or even that official named Niu Defa. The biggest investment she made was you. You’re her most valuable chess piece.”
The warmth vanished entirely from Bai Jingshan’s eyes.
The pleasant exterior cracked open, revealing the violence beneath.
Su Ran didn’t give him time to process it.
“You beat up Fu Yechuan today and called me here. Then what? Get rid of both of us? Let Bai Weiwei clean up the mess? If something goes wrong, she’ll protect you?”
“You think she can’t?”
“I think you’ll be the first person she abandons.” Su Ran said, “You can verify the check. If I’m lying, you can come find me anytime.”
The yard fell silent. A dog barked somewhere in the distance.
Out of the corner of her eye, Su Ran glanced at her phone.
Seventeen minutes. Three minutes remaining.
Bai Jingshan took a step forward.
Su Ran didn’t move.
“Miss Su, you certainly have courage.” He looked down at her, half of a snake tattoo visible above his collar. “But you’ve gotten one thing wrong. I’m not Weiwei’s chess piece. I’m her brother.”
“A brother who doesn’t even know how many bad checks his sister has written must have a pretty easy job.”
Bai Jingshan’s jaw instantly tightened.
At that moment, a sound drifted in from afar.
It was distant, yet perfectly clear in the stillness of the recycling station.
A police siren. The two crew-cut men immediately turned toward the gate.
Bai Jingshan looked over as well.
Su Ran didn’t. She knew it was Old Chen.
The twenty minutes were up.
“Bai Jingshan.” Her voice cut through the siren. “You probably have about two minutes left to leave.”
Bai Jingshan turned and stared at her.
Su Ran met his gaze. Her legs trembled uncontrollably, but her back remained perfectly straight.
Five seconds passed. Then Bai Jingshan turned and headed toward the rear of the metal shed.
The two crew-cut men followed immediately.
There was probably another exit behind it. The rear wall of the recycling station connected to a narrow alley that led directly into the neighboring district.
After taking three steps, he suddenly stopped.
“I’ll verify the check.”
He didn’t look back.
“And after you do, you’ll come looking for me?”
“No.” Bai Jingshan turned his head slightly, revealing the entire snake tattoo.
“After I verify it, I’ll go find Weiwei.”
His footsteps quickly disappeared behind the shed.
Su Ran waited ten seconds to make sure they were truly gone before running into the shed.
The zip ties had been pulled extremely tight, leaving deep red marks around Fu Yechuan’s wrists.
After rummaging through the shelves for a while, she found a rusty pair of scissors and spent twenty seconds sawing through the plastic restraints.
Fu Yechuan stood up.
As circulation returned to his hands, the sharp tingling pain made him suck in a breath.
He looked at Su Ran.
Feeling uncomfortable under his gaze, she lowered her head and pretended to wipe rust from the scissors.
“Didn’t I tell you not to come?”
“You didn’t exactly leave me enough time to discuss it with you.”
Blood seeped from the cut at the corner of his mouth again. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
“They brought six men.” His voice was low. “I took down three of them. The others pinned me.”
Silently, Su Ran raised her evaluation of his combat ability by two entire levels.
“Let’s go.” She tossed the scissors back onto the shelf. “The police will be here soon. We shouldn’t stay, explaining all this would be troublesome.”
They squeezed back through the gap in the iron gate.
Su Ran went first, then reached back to pull Fu Yechuan through.
His palm was scorching hot, whether from the sun or from the fight she couldn’t tell.
Her shared bicycle was still parked outside.
There was no way both of them could ride it.
Su Ran scanned another bike nearby. This time she got lucky. It unlocked immediately.
The two of them rode silently through the streets of the East District for five minutes.
Police sirens sounded somewhere behind them, but none came their way.
When they stopped at a red light, Fu Yechuan suddenly spoke.
“How did you know I was there?”
“He sent me a text.”
“And you just came?”
“What else was I supposed to do? Leave you there to take a few more punches for the experience?”
Fu Yechuan didn’t answer.
The light turned green. They continued riding.
When they returned to the apartment building, Fu Yechuan locked his bike and stood quietly near the entrance for a moment.
Su Ran took out her keys to open the main door when he called her name.
“Su Ran.”
“Hm?”
“Don’t do that again.”
She turned around.
Standing beneath the shadow of the entrance canopy, the injuries on his face were hard to see, but his eyes were astonishingly bright.
“I mean don’t go by yourself.” He paused briefly. “Next time, take me with you.”
Something about the statement felt strange to Su Ran, yet she couldn’t identify anything wrong with it.
In the end, she chose not to dwell on it.
After reaching the fifth floor and arriving at Room 503, she searched her pocket for her key.
Her phone slipped out and fell onto the floor.
Fu Yechuan bent down and picked it up for her.
The screen lit up. Su Ran’s fingers instinctively curled.
Displayed on the screen was the text message she had never deleted.
The one from the unknown number. Only four words appeared on it.
“Miss Su Ran.”
Fu Yechuan stared at those words for two seconds. Then he looked up at her.
“Who sent this?”
Su Ran opened her mouth. She couldn’t come up with a believable lie.
At the far end of the hallway, the newly replaced fluorescent light buzzed softly.
The aroma of instant noodles drifted out from the neighboring apartment.
Everything was exactly the same as usual.
Except for the emotion in Fu Yechuan’s eyes.
Cold as ice.