Jiang Hansheng undid his mud-stained shirt, leaving only a black T-shirt underneath. The dark color made his complexion look all the colder and paler, his features more sharply defined.
He steadied himself and explained to Zhou Jin, “I mistook him for someone else.”
Zhou Jin asked, “Who did you mistake him for?”
“…”
The mere appearance of a pocket watch had been enough to shatter his composure and reason entirely — even Jiang Hansheng himself found that humiliating.
He had no answer to give.
Zhou Jin pressed further: “Is this something that happens often? When you lose control of your emotions, do you become violent?”
Jiang Hansheng’s mind was in turmoil. He ran a hand into his hair and pushed it back, sending a faint sting across his scalp. With his forehead no longer shielded, the sharp edge buried in his nature became slightly more visible.
He furrowed his brow lightly and said, his voice low and rough: “Zhou Jin, I’m not a criminal.”
Despite Jiang Hansheng’s habitual restraint — the kind that made his emotions nearly impossible to read — Zhou Jin still caught the faint note of grievance beneath his words.
Zhou Jin said, “I don’t think of you as a criminal. I just don’t want to be deceived by someone close to me again.”
One Jiang Cheng had been more than enough. She didn’t want to one day “accidentally” discover that Jiang Hansheng harbored some side of himself she couldn’t accept.
Silence was the only reply.
Zhou Jin didn’t push him. She said, “The things you don’t want to talk about — I won’t ask. I just want to know one thing: when you had your hands around Yan Bin’s throat, what exactly were you thinking?”
“Protecting you.”
He answered without a moment’s hesitation, and Zhou Jin was caught off guard.
After a moment, she understood what he meant. “You said you mistook him for someone else — you thought he was going to hurt me?”
“Yes.”
Zhou Jin ventured a guess: “Does it have something to do with your previous work?”
Jiang Hansheng said, “I can’t answer that question right now.”
“…”
The rain continued to fall in a quiet, unceasing patter against the car windows, deepening the silence inside the cabin.
Zhou Jin tilted her head back, resting the back of her skull against the headrest, and let out a long, quiet sigh with her eyes closed.
She had been far too careless with Jiang Hansheng.
In the months leading up to their wedding — a brief courtship of only a few months — he had always given her the impression of being gentle and refined, willing to accommodate her in every way.
Being around him had never felt tiring.
In Zhou Jin’s eyes, Jiang Hansheng was a university professor, a man with better circumstances than her own, a stable career, and a life that rarely saw upheaval.
Even when she learned after their marriage that he had once worked in the Provincial Bureau’s Criminal Research Division, she hadn’t given it much thought. After all, that was already in the past — nothing particularly worth asking about.
But she should have realized: cases handled by the Provincial Bureau’s Criminal Research Division were almost invariably tied to serious criminal matters. Director Wang Pengzhe was getting on in years and had long since stepped back from the front lines, shifting to analytical and advisory roles. The hands-on fieldwork would naturally have fallen to his students — and Jiang Hansheng had been one of them.
The danger of his former work had perhaps been no less than her own as a criminal investigator.
Seeing her remain silent, Jiang Hansheng continued, “Zhou Jin, I will not hurt you. And I will not hurt anyone who is innocent.”
His palm settled over the back of her hand, a quiet plea in his expression: “Don’t be afraid of me.”
Zhou Jin looked at him steadily, then turned her hand over and held his. She was still for a moment — and then she smiled. “What is there to be afraid of?”
Her hand moved along his arm, and in the next instant, Jiang Hansheng found himself pulled into a firm embrace.
Warmth seeped into the cold, damp fabric against his skin and slowly began to dissolve it.
Jiang Hansheng heard her speak in a light, unbothered tone: “Jiang Hansheng, don’t be so impulsive next time. I’m a police officer — I’m not some ordinary person.”
“Alright.” He felt a little numb.
Was this the first time Zhou Jin had embraced him of her own accord?
But Zhou Jin was operating on an entirely different wavelength. She kept teasing him, trying to ease the tension still coiled in his body.
“As for any criminal who dares to come — if they have the nerve to show up, I have the nerve to show them what it means to face the full force of the law.”
“Zhou Jin…”
She laughed — a light, bubbling sound — and let it go.
Just as she was about to pull away, Jiang Hansheng raised his hand and held her firmly back against him.
Zhou Jin blinked. “Jiang Hansheng?”
He buried his face in the curve of her neck, his lips pressed against her skin, and kissed her there — briefly, softly.
The warmth of his breath left a faint flush spreading through her chest.
When they finally parted, Jiang Hansheng had settled at last. He wanted to say something but didn’t know where to begin.
He pressed her hand to his lips and said, quietly and indistinctly: “Thank you.”
Zhou Jin’s face slowly turned red. She found it a little overwhelming — but she didn’t pull her hand away. She let him hold it.
Neither of them spoke. They sat together in a companionable quiet for a while. Zhou Jin endured the warmth burning in her face and said, as though it had just occurred to her: “You — your fighting skills are something else.”