CJLTNS Chapter 17

At 1 a.m., Yu Xin and Xu Yuanyuan were staking out the back entrance of a hotel. Xu Yuanyuan let out a massive yawn and wiped away the tears at the corners of her tired eyes with a tissue.
“Shifu, it’s already 1 a.m., are we really still gonna keep waiting?”

Yu Xin was half-lying in the driver’s seat, binoculars fixed on the hotel’s back door.
“Of course. One o’clock is nothing. We need to stay professional. Besides, I got a tip—tonight, we’ll definitely catch something.”

From 1 a.m. to 2:30 a.m., they waited. Xu Yuanyuan couldn’t hold on and eventually fell asleep in the passenger seat, softly snoring. Yu Xin, however, kept his fox-like eyes wide open, showing no signs of fatigue.

Suddenly, a group of people emerged from the hotel’s back door. They were all handcuffed, heads down, squatting on the ground.

Yu Xin quickly woke Xu Yuanyuan. “They’re here! Quick, start filming!”

Both Yu Xin and Xu Yuanyuan grabbed their cameras. Xu Yuanyuan captured wide shots while Yu Xin focused on close-ups—every person was recorded.

After the Li Gui case was cracked, the office finally settled into a peaceful atmosphere.

Ever since that incident in the cafeteria, Li Fangfei had been living in fear, dreading that she’d provoked Jiang Chong. But five or six days passed, and Jiang Chong never brought it up again, slowly putting her mind at ease.

At lunchtime, Tang Qijun was busy playing games, Yuan Kai and Ma Pingchuan were chatting idly, and Li Fangfei was watching a livestream on her phone.

A new entertainment blogger called “Happy Monday Surprise” had recently gone viral online. He’d repeatedly exposed scandals like celebrities kissing or coming out. Now, he was the hottest streamer with over 500,000 people waiting in the chat to see who today’s gossip target would be.

Cough cough.

Just as Li Fangfei was enjoying her gossip fix, Ma Pingchuan let out a loud cough. After what happened in the cafeteria last time, Li Fangfei picked up on the signal immediately and quickly hid her phone.

“Captain? What are you doing here?”

She turned around and saw Jiang Chong standing right behind her. She immediately stood at attention, straight as a soldier.

Li Fangfei had no idea how long Jiang Chong had been standing there or how much he’d seen. But remembering the principle “be honest for leniency, resist and face severity,” she lowered her head and confessed:
“Captain, I really don’t watch this often… just during lunch breaks when I’ve got nothing to do.”

Jiang Chong never watched livestreams or used short video apps. But he recognized the voice coming from Li Fangfei’s phone—it was Yu Xin’s college buddy, Feng Xiaohua.

“It’s fine. You can keep watching.”

Li Fangfei felt like she was hallucinating. Jiang Chong was actually telling her she could keep watching a livestream at work? Was this some kind of reverse psychology trap? She stole a glance at Jiang Chong’s face—no sarcasm, no mocking, just serious as ever.

Still looking miserable, she pulled her phone back out under his gaze.

“Hello, friends! I’m Xiaohua from Joy Entertainment. Let’s wait a bit more—once we hit 800,000 viewers, I’ll reveal today’s exclusive scoop!”

On the screen, a chubby man wearing a panda headgear was streaming, his face completely hidden.

Jiang Chong recognized him at a glance—Feng Xiaohua, Yu Xin’s old college roommate. Back when he and Yu Xin were together, he’d heard all about Xiaohua’s “glorious dream.” After all these years, the guy was still at it.

Normally, watching livestream gossip was a joyous and spiritually uplifting thing. But with Jiang Chong looming behind her, Li Fangfei felt like her butt was sitting on a bed of needles—or worse, a durian.

Jiang Chong didn’t leave, and Li Fangfei didn’t dare move either—she had no choice but to bite the bullet and keep watching.

“Alright, we now have 810,000 viewers online. Let’s begin today’s scoop.”

Feng Xiaohua took out an enlarged photo and continued, “Today we’re exposing none other than top celebrity Feng Yu. On the 30th, our reporters caught him in a hotel engaging in □□, and he was even arrested by the police…”

“Ah!!” Li Fangfei’s scream drew the attention of the entire office—even Tang Qijun, who had been playing games with headphones on, took them off and turned to look at her.

“Feng Yu?! How could he? Ahh!”

She slammed her phone onto the desk, mouth open in despair, crying like she’d just been dumped. “My idol—he actually went and…”

Ma Pingchuan, who had worked two years at a local police station and had seen all kinds of outrageous things, shook his head and walked over. “Fangfei, sigh…”

Yuan Kai followed behind, gently patting her shoulder. “Fangfei, my condolences.”

Tang Qijun, still playing his game as he walked past, casually added, “I can help write your case report later.”

“You guys… you guys…”

Seeing that only Jiang Chong was left in the office, Li Fangfei didn’t dare complain to him. Besides, Jiang Chong was like an iron wall—venting to him would probably only make things worse.

She hunched her shoulders, shrinking like a little quail. Although Jiang Chong couldn’t understand why she was so devastated over a man she’d never even met, he still couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy. Fangfei might be a bit flighty at times, but she had never slacked off in her work—and among the female officers, she was actually one of the more outstanding ones.

“The case is closed. Call a few others—after work, dinner’s on me.”

Li Fangfei sniffled, touched by the unexpected humanity in Captain Jiang. With teary eyes, she said, “Okay, Captain. Let’s go to that same place from last time—the bird’s nest soup there is really good.”

If she’s thinking about food, then she must be fine. Relieved, Jiang Chong left the office to report the case to Director Wu.

That evening, Jiang Chong brought a few members of the Criminal Investigation Unit to the same restaurant. It was peak dinner time, but the place was owned by the Jiang family, and their usual private room had already been reserved.

To soothe Li Fangfei’s broken heart, Jiang Chong handed her the menu. Without hesitation, she ordered two bowls of bird’s nest soup—ready to nourish her deeply wounded soul.

Halfway through the meal, Li Fangfei stepped out to take a call and didn’t come back for a while. Just as Jiang Chong was about to ask Yuan Kai to go check on her, the door opened and in came Li Fangfei.

She looked mysterious—her earlier sorrow completely gone from her face.

“Guess who I just saw outside?”

Jiang Chong usually steered clear of Fangfei’s gossip, but Yuan Kai played along. “Who did you see?”

Li Fangfei made a sly gesture toward Jiang Chong and said, “I saw Yu Xin. He was eating with another man.”

Yu Xin. Jiang Chong immediately put down his chopsticks and perked up.

Li Fangfei continued, “And it wasn’t the guy who picked him up at the station last time. This one was also pretty good-looking.”

Could it be that guy Duan Zhao he saw a few days ago? Jiang Chong quickly ran through the possibilities in his head and put down his chopsticks, only to find that the others were all looking at him.

Jiang Chong stood up as if nothing had happened and picked up a napkin to wipe his mouth. “You guys keep eating, I’m going to make a call.”

He left the private dining room, glanced around, and quickly locked onto Yu Xin’s location. Yu Xin was sitting behind a semi-transparent screen, facing a man who looked to be around thirty. The two of them were chatting and laughing, clearly enjoying themselves.

“Captain.”

Li Fangfei had somehow appeared behind Jiang Chong and suddenly spoke, startling him.

Jiang Chong scowled and gritted his teeth. “Didn’t see anything.”

Li Fangfei looked at him with a knowing expression. “Captain, if you like him, you like him. Stop pretending.”

Before he could reply, Ma Pingchuan’s head suddenly popped up behind Li Fangfei, followed by Yuan Kai and Tang Qijun.

“Isn’t that the new captain of the Public Order Division, Shen Xuan?”

“You know him?” Jiang Chong turned to ask Ma Pingchuan.

Ma Pingchuan nodded. “Shen Xuan just arrived less than a month ago. I heard he used to be in a UN peacekeeping unit overseas. After returning to the country, he was assigned to our Kangzhou City Bureau.”

So it was him. Jiang Chong had heard of Shen Xuan before. He was also a graduate of the Chinese People’s Public Security University, two years older than Jiang Chong. After graduation, he went straight to a UN peacekeeping mission overseas and was gone for ten years. He’d only recently returned and been assigned to Kangzhou.

“Captain, how do you think he and Yu Xin know each other? They look pretty familiar with each other.”

How would Jiang Chong know how Shen Xuan and Yu Xin met? He didn’t know a thing about what had happened to Yu Xin in the past six years.

Jiang Chong’s expression darkened further, and he clenched his back molars. “How the hell would I know?”

Meanwhile, Yu Xin and Shen Xuan, completely unaware they were being watched, clinked their teacups.

“This time, I really have to thank you. If not for you, I wouldn’t have gotten such a big scoop,” Yu Xin said.

Shen Xuan took a sip of tea and smiled. “Come on, with us two, don’t be so formal. As long as I’m not breaking any rules, of course I’ll help where I can.”

The way Shen Xuan and Yu Xin met was rather unusual. Five years ago, Yu Xin went to teach at a school in Lebanon. Later, the school was taken over by armed militants, and Yu Xin, along with the other teachers, became hostages.

Their first meeting was as peacekeeping officer and hostage. When Shen Xuan burst through the door, the other teachers were all terrified—except for Yu Xin, who was calm and composed. Shen Xuan had seen plenty of hostages before, but this was the first time he encountered one who didn’t panic or cry.

They met again later at a field hospital. Shen Xuan learned that Yu Xin had been suffering from severe depression. He had come to Lebanon from the U.S. to teach, partly because he was ready to give up on life.

With the situation on the ground constantly shifting, Yu Xin was quickly evacuated. Shen Xuan moved on and soon forgot about him. Their next meeting was in Iraq. This time, Yu Xin had taken on a new identity—working in a local supermarket.

The two of them had kept in sporadic contact—at most once or twice a year. Most of the time, Shen Xuan learned about Yu Xin’s activities through the news. It wasn’t until recently, when they both happened to be in Kangzhou, that they got back in touch. Shen Xuan, working in the Public Security Brigade in charge of cracking down on prostitution, gave Yu Xin insider information about a top celebrity scandal.

Shen Xuan found Yu Xin quite an interesting person—every time they met, he seemed to be in a different role. But Shen Xuan didn’t believe for a second that Yu Xin had come back to China just to be an entertainment reporter. He clearly had other plans.

Everyone has their secrets. Yu Xin didn’t speak of his, and Shen Xuan didn’t ask. After dinner, Yu Xin paid the bill without realizing that, from a distance, Jiang Chong had been watching him the entire time.

Yu Xin had just gotten home when he received a message from Duan Zhao.

Yu Xin had repeatedly reviewed the hidden video footage he had taken at Li Gui’s house. In the video, he saw a bottle of homemade medicinal liquor sitting in the room. Inside the bottle was something that looked like a bull penis, and a sloppily written label was stuck on the outside.

Feeling suspicious, Yu Xin had asked Duan Zhao to investigate the source of the liquor. Turned out, it was made by a barefoot doctor in the suburbs and was meant to treat male impotence and premature ejaculation.

According to this barefoot doctor, Li Gui had been impotent for three years and was physically incapable of sex. Then how could he have slept with Yang Chao’s wife?

Yang Chao was lying. Lies often serve to hide the truth. Maybe it was true that Yang Chao had been lured into gambling by Li Gui and ended up in debt. But that alone wasn’t enough to drive him to kill. The fact that Yang Chao’s fingerprints were mysteriously found at the crime scene—making him the prime suspect in Li Gui’s murder—was far more alarming.

Yu Xin sat weakly on the edge of his bed, feeling as though he were entangled in a giant net. Questions swirled in his mind—how exactly did his father’s car accident happen all those years ago? Who was really behind Li Gui? Who was backing Yang Chao? And were the people behind Li Gui and Yang Chao… the same person?

Yu Xin rubbed his aching head, reached for the medicine bottle by his bed, shook out two pills, and swallowed them with some cold water.