"My feeling is this, lady officer — no, my lady head constable: if you lived in the book Ice Peak Demon Romance, you'd most likely have died of bliss by now."
Though she had no idea what the man meant, Zhang Yinluo still sensed, with a woman's keen sixth sense, the filthy malice in his words. Instinct told her it was better not to dig too deep into these inexplicable remarks... Their acquaintance had been brief, yet Zhang Yinluo had instinctively grasped the key to talking with Sun Lang.
When you talk to this guy, you must keep a firm grip on the subject and on your own purpose — or he'll drag the conversation off into the gutter.
So she went straight to it. "So I'm asking! What exactly will it take for you to agree to help me?!"
"How would I know?" Sun Lang shrugged. "Ah, how dim are you, really... Since ancient times, goddesses reel in simps, the head-god runs his reincarnation rounds, Kyubey gets you to sign the contract, and the bleeding-heart saint goes recruiting cannon fodder — these traffickers' tricks come down to just a few formulas. You can't threaten me with force, can't outscheme me with tricks, can't move me with morality, can't brainwash me with talk, can't draw me with conviction, can't seduce me with your body — feeling rather stuck, aren't you? Ah, you idiots, racking your brains, exhausting your wits, and forgetting the single most efficient method..."
A beam of light flashed across Zhang Yinluo's mind, and she said thoughtfully, "...I can persuade you with profit!"
"There it is, there it is — you've awakened at last." Sun Lang wore the look of a finally-teachable child. "Young lady, you skimped on your intelligence stat. After all my patient coaxing, only now do you grasp the crux."
He went on slowly. "This is the second thing I want you to understand: never, at any time, impose your own will and ideas onto another person. Everyone must answer for their own actions, and can only answer for their own. Some things you might do without regret or complaint — but you can't demand others share your thinking, can't force them to fight for your ideals and convictions..."
"Some people long for world peace, eternal justice, a great harmony under heaven. But some ask only for a quiet life, a happy family, lasting contentment. Maybe, to protect the happiness he treasures, the latter will one day join the ranks of the former — but that is his own choice. The former must never use his ideals to force the latter to do what he dislikes, to force him to abandon his happiness, cast off his world, and fight for someone else over matters and ideals that have nothing to do with him..." Sun Lang gazed at Zhang Yinluo and said evenly, "I consider that the basest, most loathsome, most damnable act in all the world. I deeply despise it, deeply hate it, deeply abhor it, deeply detest it. You'd best not become that sort of person."
His tone was bland and his eyes calm, but the words struck Zhang Yinluo with an inexplicable chill — so much so that she didn't even want to know what the consequences of becoming that sort of person were... She didn't want to know at all.
But I won't become that sort of person anyway... Zhang Yinluo snorted. "I do my own business myself. I never make trouble for others!"
Sun Lang shot her a sidelong look. "Then what are you doing right now?"
"..." The head constable's face couldn't quite hold. "All right, all right, honestly... You put on that kindly, let's-be-reasonable face at the start and made me forget my original plan... which was to hire you all along! Aren't you an errant? I'll pay to hire you to help me settle this. That way you not only clear your suspicion, you also earn a handsome commission..."
She looked at Sun Lang and said earnestly, "So — name your price. I do have some money."
"What would I want with money?" Sun Lang curled his lip, the very image of a man who regarded riches as dung, and then said, right to the face of this officer of the state's apparatus of violence, "If I were short of money, I'd go steal it, rob it, swindle it, gamble for it. There's no end of ways to make money these days. I don't need yours."
Zhang Yinluo said icily, "...Then I'll ask you to give me advance notice the next time you set out to make some money to spend."
"Oh?" Sun Lang said in pleased surprise. "You want to forsake the dark and turn to the light?"
"Dark, my foot! And what in the world makes you the 'light'?!" Zhang Yinluo retorted loudly.
In this short span of time, someone's retort skill seemed to be advancing by leaps and bounds.
She looked at the errant, her eyes full of scrutiny and suspicion. "I really feel like you must have a whole pile of criminal records."
Sun Lang said gravely, "Nonsense, I've never had any such thing!"
"...I don't believe you."
"You'd best believe it." Sun Lang said haughtily. "With the talents of those misshapen runts at your Six Gates, how could they ever trace anything to Sun? Since the cops can't find evidence and can't catch me, how is it a crime, and how could there be a record?!"
"I think your present remarks are already hovering right on the edge of crime!"
Sun Lang dug at his nostril. "Arrest me, then, if you've got the spine. But you call yourself a partner of justice, out to uphold judicial fairness and the world's righteousness — arresting people with no evidence, are you really going to do that?"
"..." Zhang Yinluo ground her teeth. "I hope you're only joking. And I hope I never catch you with anything on you in the future!"
"Anything on me... what do you want my handle for? To plug your own hole?" Sun Lang backed off two steps with a face of horror. "What a vicious woman you are!"
Zhang Yinluo went blank, then her cheeks flushed crimson in an instant. "Shameless! Filthy! You'd twist even a thing like that! And — would you quit talking nonsense! Why has the subject veered off again!"
The head constable felt herself on the very edge of losing it. She pointed at Sun Lang and shouted, "You don't want money — then what do you want? What in the world will it take for you to come help me?!"
The errant cupped his chin and looked Zhang Yinluo up and down with a meaningful air. "You tell me."
The head constable backed up a few steps like a startled doe, arms crossed over her chest. "Wh-wh-what do you want to do? I'm warning you, that kind of demand — I will absolutely never agree to it!"
Sun Lang gave a mock sigh. "And just now you were going on about saving a lady thief drowning in a sea of suffering..."
"That's right, but that's saving a life! To threaten with someone else's life, to loot a house on fire, to make so vile a demand — to rob a girl of her chastity and leave her to live out her days in pain and loss — a man who'd demand such a thing is as base as the criminal himself, never worth trusting, never worth working with. A man who'd do even that — how could I believe in his character, believe he'd help me with his whole heart, believe he wouldn't betray me?" Zhang Yinluo denounced him righteously. "I still have to marry someday. I hate your sort most of all!"
Sun Lang said flatly, "Feel good getting all those curses in while the iron's hot?"
Zhang Yinluo's expression froze, then she put on an ingratiating smile. "Could we — try a different one?"
"I just wanted to say... aren't you feeling a little too good about yourself?" Sun Lang eyed her sidelong. "What do I want to do? Please. With looks like yours, you think I'd want to do anything? Big tits, so what? Go take a look in the mirror..."
"..." I'll endure it, I'll endure it, I'll endure it. The corner of Zhang Yinluo's eye twitched. "Then what do you want?"
"A so-called price, a so-called sacrifice, a so-called conviction... only what you can't bear to give up deserves the name of price." Sun Lang pointed at Zhang Yinluo and said placidly, "I've no interest in your body. But — I hear you've got a Startled Swan Sword, yes? I'll take it. That's the price for the help you want."