Assuming Qi Yan hadn’t died, every suspicious point would now fall into place.
But how could he not be dead?
Jiang Hansheng closed his eyes briefly.
The scene from that day might have gradually blurred with the passage of time, but the moment Qi Yan collapsed before him remained vivid in his memory to this day.
Before Qi Yan, Jiang Hansheng had never entertained any thought of killing anyone; yet from that point onward, every time anger rose within him, the cold, damp sensation of gripping that gun would slither up his arm like a venomous snake.
The right hand gripping the umbrella handle tightened slightly.
Zhou Jin’s mind was elsewhere. She hadn’t noticed anything amiss about him. She carefully turned over what Jiang Hansheng had said, then asked, “Is it also possible that Qi Yan wasn’t his real name?”
“No.” Jiang Hansheng said. “He had no intention of letting me leave alive. There was no reason to lie to someone who was about to die.”
……
“While the others were receiving commendations for recovering the lost firearm, Hansheng had to begin drug rehabilitation treatment.”
……
Now, Jiang Hansheng stood silently in the rain. His face was fair and handsome, his dark eyes still as a pool of deep water.
Zhou Jin gazed at him, something catching in her throat, as though an unseen hand had closed around it.
She steadied her breathing and said, “It seems we’ll be walking away empty-handed today. Tomorrow we’ll be holding a meeting with the detectives from Jingang and Ningyuan to hear their thoughts.”
Jiang Hansheng gave a small nod.
The two of them walked out of the back alley, exchanged greetings with the detectives on the scene, then returned to the car together.
Zhou Jin insisted on driving and had Jiang Hansheng sit in the passenger seat. “You didn’t sleep well last night either. Rest a while longer — I’ll drive.”
Jiang Hansheng was somewhat surprised. “What do you mean, didn’t sleep well?”
Zhou Jin smiled but didn’t answer. She reached back, grabbed the pillow from the rear seat, and pressed it firmly over Jiang Hansheng’s face, then adjusted his seat for him.
“Sleep,” she said. “It’s over an hour on the road.”
Zhou Jin’s tone left no room for refusal.
Jiang Hansheng had no choice but to obediently comply, reclining in the passenger seat with his eyes closed.
Perhaps he really was that exhausted.
Body and mind utterly worn down, heavy with a weight that kept pulling him deeper, deeper, sinking and drifting through a pitch-black sea.
After what felt like a very long time, his legs finally moved again, carrying him down a long corridor toward its far end.
At the end of the corridor was a brilliant light. Against that light, a young girl stood not far before him.
She wore a white dress. Her long hair was as dark as a raven’s wing. Her face was delicate and clean, and she was smiling — radiant and full of warmth.
This version of Zhou Jin — he had never seen her with his own eyes.
She existed only in a small photograph, stored inside a pocket watch engraved with a pattern of pine branches.
That pocket watch’s owner was not him. It had originally belonged to Zhou Chuan.
Jiang Hansheng stood before the door of No. 24 Gardenia Lane, gift box in hand, paying a visit to the Zhou family.
The Zhou family elders were not home. Only Zhou Chuan came to the door.
The bearing of a soldier seemed to have been tempered into him from the marrow of his bones — his back and shoulders straight as a sword, his brow and eyes clear and open, his appearance carrying an air of integrity and directness, projecting both steadiness and warmth.
Faced with him, Jiang Hansheng, never one for easy conversation, fell into a long silence. In the end, it was Zhou Chuan who spoke first.
“Jiang Hansheng.”
Zhou Chuan remembered his name. He smiled and said, “I remember when you used to live next door — you were only this tall.”
He raised a hand to indicate Jiang Hansheng’s height from those years ago.
Jiang Hansheng felt embarrassed, and found himself even less able to speak.
Zhou Chuan didn’t mind. He made a guess at the purpose of the visit. “You’re here to see Zhou Jin?”
Just as Zhou Chuan remembered Jiang Hansheng’s name, he naturally also remembered what Jiang Hansheng had done during his time in Gardenia Lane.
Zhou Chuan was older, after all. Where Jiang Cheng might have seen something pathological in Jiang Hansheng’s behavior, Zhou Chuan saw it simply as the first stirrings of a young boy’s admiration.
Only that Jiang Hansheng was more persistent than most.
Zhou Chuan invited Jiang Hansheng inside and led him to his own room.
Jiang Hansheng stood at the doorway and looked around. The room was clean and neat, everything arranged in perfect order — even the blanket had been folded into a precise, block-like square.
Zhou Chuan had served in the military.
Jiang Hansheng quickly withdrew his gaze, wary of letting himself pry further into someone else’s life.
Zhou Chuan sat down and continued tinkering with his pocket watch.
The pocket watch had been his reward for earning a second-class merit commendation in the police force. The outside was engraved with a pattern of pine branches — the same pine branches as those on the police emblem — and carried considerable sentimental value.
A pity he had no use for something so refined. Zhou Jin, however, had spotted it at first glance and had been clamoring for it ever since.
He was thinking about how to set Zhou Jin’s photograph inside it so he could give it to her as a gift.