Early the next morning.
Lao Mao had an assignment with his team, so he was woken up by a call at six and rushed back to the Police Department. Qin Yu was just wondering what to eat for a cheap breakfast when, to his surprise, Lin Nianlei brought him a plate of steaming hot youtiao.
“Just bought this. Eat up!” Lin Nianlei called out, hanging the youtiao on his door handle.
“Oh, you really shouldn’t have,” Qin Yu said, pausing mid-wash.
“It’s nothing, neighbors should help each other.” Lin Nianlei just wanted to thank him for the hot water last night. She smiled and added, “I’m off to work.”
“…This early?”
“Yeah, I have field work today, so I need to go in early to sort out my equipment.” Lin Nianlei gave Qin Yu a bright, beautiful smile and waved. “See you tonight.”
“You got it!”
“Bye-bye, sis,” Lin Nianlei said, turning away with her shoulder bag.
Qin Yu stood frozen for a long time. Sis? Where did that come from? Did she just take me for a bottom…?!
Five minutes later.
Lin Nianlei met up with a female coworker at the entrance. As they walked toward work, her inner gossip took over. “Let me tell you, that really manly guy in my courtyard… might be gay…”
“Are you serious?”
“Basically confirmed. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Oh my god, what a waste.”
“…”
…
After eating the breakfast Lin Nianlei brought, Qin Yu quickly tidied up and headed to work.
Due to resource scarcity and Songjiang being a newly established city, basic transportation was incredibly inconvenient. There were no subways or buses, and taxis were exceedingly rare. Ordinary people basically relied on their own two legs or bought an electric scooter. However, charging fees were steep; the only people who could afford them were merchants with stable incomes or junior officials at institutions.
Qin Yu was a cheapskate. Since he was saving money for other goals, he hadn’t bought a scooter. And while he could technically use his team’s vehicles off-duty, he’d have to cover the usage fees himself. Because of this, walking was his only option.
After walking for about five minutes, Qin Yu was just considering ducking into a store to check for e-cigarettes when two burly men approached, flanking him on his left and right.
Judging by their posture and expressions, Qin Yu instinctively took a step back. His right hand dropped to his waist, feigning a draw—even though he wasn’t carrying his service weapon.
“No harm intended. Just want to talk,” the lead thug muttered, lowering his head.
Qin Yu stayed silent for a few seconds. “Who are you?”
“You don’t need to know me. You just need to know this.” The man lifted the hem of his coat, revealing a gun tucked into his waistband.
Qin Yu’s expression turned icy. He stood completely still.
The thug flicked off the gun’s safety. “Can we talk?”
Qin Yu quickly ran through the list of people he had offended since arriving in Songjiang, then nodded. “Lead the way.”
…
A few minutes later, inside an alley.
Four middle-aged men flanked Qin Yu. An old man remained seated in an electric off-road vehicle, making no move to step out.
Qin Yu carefully sized them up. They were dressed plainly, all wearing heavy leather coats and woolen hats. Their faces looked grimy, smeared with what appeared to be grease.
In this environment, Qin Yu wasn’t actually afraid of slickly dressed, soft-spoken big shots who loved acting mysterious and all-knowing. Instead, he was somewhat wary of these unknown, rustic-looking grunts. He felt a little tense. These men reminded him of Matsushita—the brutal bandit who had just been gunned down a few days ago.
“You’re the one who bagged Ma Lao’er and Da Min?” the old man in the electric vehicle asked, wrapping his thick coat tighter around his shoulders.
The main reason Qin Yu hadn’t fought back earlier and had obediently followed them was that he had a pretty good idea they were here about the case. The list of people he had crossed in Songjiang was short. Lao San was one, but their friction was nowhere near the point of murder. If these men were here because of the case, it was just business—they wanted to bail their people out. Qin Yu figured they had no reason to fight him head-on.
Qin Yu hesitated for a second, then nodded. “I caught them.”
“My surname is Ma. I’m the elder brother of Ma Lao’er’s father.” The old man lowered his head, pulled out a flue-cured cigarette, and lit it.
Qin Yu blinked, his expression instantly shifting into a sleazy, deferential smile. “Hello, hello, Boss Ma.”
The old man turned to look out the window, his voice raspy. “Young man, you new to Songjiang?”
“Yes, just got here. I bought this job with cash.” Qin Yu was exceedingly frank. “Heh, anyone in the Police Department can boss me around.”
“You’ve got some connections, then. You just got here, and you’re already a Group Leader?” Old Man Ma took a drag.
“No connections at all,” Qin Yu said with a bitter look. “I just got lucky. I stumbled onto a case, cracked it by chance, and the Bureau Director was happy enough to give me a special promotion.”
Old Man Ma exhaled a plume of smoke, staying quiet for a long while before speaking again. “Young man, you handled the case. Figure something out, do me a favor, and let them go.”
“Heh, this…” Qin Yu smiled, looking terrified. “This… is going to be really hard for me!”
“I’m not asking you to do it for free.”
With that, Old Man Ma gestured to the thug on Qin Yu’s left. The man pulled 20,000 Asian Yuan in cash from his coat and shoved it toward Qin Yu. “Take it.”
“This… this isn’t very appropriate,” Qin Yu said with a strained smile, trying to decline.
“If you don’t want the money, there are bullets,” the thug said simply. “Which one do you want?”
Fine beads of sweat broke out on Qin Yu’s forehead. He was tense. He had a gut feeling that if these men didn’t get their way, they would ruthlessly butcher him right here.
“Young man, you led the team on this case. All you have to do is quietly remove some evidence, and my two family members walk free, right?” Old Man Ma said with a smile. “In this day and age, people talk about food and drink. They talk about survival. But I’ve never heard anyone talk about principles. Being a cop might not last long, but once the cash is in your hands, you can spend it whenever you want.”
Qin Yu reached out and touched the 20,000 in the thug’s hand, plastering on a greasy smile. “Boss Ma, I’ll speak from the heart—I dream about taking this money. Twenty grand? I could buy myself a sergeant’s rank and marry a few wives with that. But… I really do have a predicament here.”
The old man didn’t respond.
“The Department leaders promoted me and explicitly ordered me to crack this drug trafficking case,” Qin Yu explained softly. “If I had just grabbed them and hadn’t taken them back to the station yet? Forget the twenty grand—even if you didn’t pay me a cent, I’d have let them go the second I heard your name. But now they’re locked up in the Department. The evidence chain is locked tight. If I suddenly let them go now, wouldn’t I be defying my superiors and making trouble for the Department? Boss Ma, I scraped by in the Unplanned Zone like a ghost for years. I finally found a stable meal ticket, so I absolutely cannot afford to cross my bosses… Because of that, I really can’t help you here.”
“Motherfucker, we tried being nice and you threw it back in our faces!”
The thug on his right pulled out a Nepalese kukri, swung his arm back in a wide arc, and chopped straight for the back of Qin Yu’s head.
The blade cut through the air with a sharp whistle. The strike was blindingly fast.