DSMIS CH5

Chapter 5: Can You Come Inside with Me?

Jiang Lin opened the rear door of his truck. The light smile that had graced his eyes just a moment ago vanished, his thin lips pressed tightly together. He raised his gaze to check Heibao’s reaction in the back seat. Seeing him, the black German Shepherd immediately leaned its head forward as if begging for affection. He reached out, stroked its head, and tapped lightly on one of the nearby suitcases.

The black dog perked up its ears, followed his hand to sniff the suitcase once more, and then showed no further reaction. Jiang Lin released a soft, subtle breath. After such a long time, Heibao had shown zero abnormal reactions, which meant these suitcases were completely clean.

Then again, his car had been searched for so long at the border check that anything to be found would have definitely been uncovered. The fact that he was cleared and released meant they found nothing. Could it really be that the border checkpoint had simply stopped the wrong vehicle earlier?

He knit his brows slightly. Targeted searches like that were almost always based on confidential tips. If they could still pull over the wrong guy, it meant the two vehicles must look nearly identical—just how outrageously unlucky did one have to be to hit a coincidence like that? He couldn’t help but glance back toward the orange Audi, scanning the driver with the X-ray gaze he had honed over years of scrutinizing criminal suspects, only to see the guy sticking his butt up in the air, poking at the newly swapped tire with his finger.

If he were a suspect with a guilty conscience, he would never give anyone an opportunity to get close to anything on his car. Besides, nowadays, whether someone was a smuggler or a drug trafficker, they wouldn’t hire a complete useless waste who didn’t even know how to change a tire, right? Therefore, in all probability, this guy really was just a massive, unadulterated jinx.

Closing the door, he grabbed the winch lock and walked over. While securing the two vehicles, he spoke to Shen Xing:

“There’s mud under your tires, so they’ll slip. Go find some branches and weeds to wedge behind the wheels.”

“Oh, got it.”

Shen Xing dutifully went off to gather grass and branches.

With everything in place, both men returned to their respective vehicles and rolled down their windows. Shen Xing reached his hand out to flash an OK sign, and Jiang Lin started the engine.

The instant burst of power from the 3.5T twin-turbo engine was astonishing. Almost the second the accelerator was engaged, Shen Xing felt his mud-trapped car begin to loosen, the backward pulling force clearly evident. The rear wheels spun, spraying mud in all directions and immediately showering the front of the Land Cruiser behind him in a thick layer of sludge.

However, the rear wheels were quickly wrapped in slurry again, beginning to spin uselessly in place.

Left with no choice, Shen Xing reached out his hand and made a stop gesture. Jiang Lin released the gas pedal, watching as the man ahead stepped out of his car once more, picked up more branches and weeds, and wedged them behind the wheels before getting back inside.

Finally, accompanied by the roar of the engine behind him, the Audi A6—which had half its nose buried below the road shoulder—was pulled straight out of the mud like a giant radish. Shen Xing felt as though his feet were firmly planted back on planet Earth.

Stepping out of his car, his eyes sparkled as he stared at the Land Cruiser behind him, giving its hood a friendly pat:

“Nothing beats a hardcore off-roader after all! This thing has real power—your truck is seriously badass!”

Jiang Lin let out a faint smile. Last time, the guy had said his Heibao was “badass.” Bending down, he unhooked the tow strap hooked to the rear of the Audi A6, moved it to the back of his own truck, drove ahead of the Audi, got out to attach the strap to the front bumper of the Audi, and then calmly pulled out his phone:

“Mind giving me your phone number? It’s my first time using this tow strap, and I don’t know how reliable it is. Wouldn’t want to lose you halfway.”

Shen Xing rattled off his number without hesitation:

“Not a problem at all! It’s 138-xxxx-xxxx.”

Moments later, the phone in his pocket rang with a local number. Jiang Lin looked up:

“That’s my number. If anything goes wrong with your car on the road, call me.”

“You got it!”

Both men got into their cars. This was Shen Xing’s very first time being towed. The two vehicles traveled one after the other down the mountain road, only this time, the Land Cruiser was leading the way.

Grasping the steering wheel tightly while watching the Land Cruiser’s taillights through the driving rain, Shen Xing felt a bit amused and began complaining inwardly. If the Land Cruiser bro had taken the lead earlier, I might not have crashed in the first place.

But on second thought, given the Land Cruiser’s high clearance and massive tires, that puddle earlier probably wouldn’t have affected him at all. If Shen Xing had crashed into the ditch while trailing behind, the Land Cruiser would have sped off into the distance before Shen Xing could even register its taillights. By then, no matter how much he screamed for help, no one would have heard him. Thinking about it that way, he really had to thank the Land Cruiser bro for his grace in refusing to overtake earlier.

The 25 kilometers that Shen Xing would normally never think twice about took well over an hour to cover. By the time they reached the entrance of the town, the sky had turned pitch black. Shen Xing couldn’t help but crane his neck to look forward.

This small town was vastly different from the weekend getaway spots he had in mind. Along the roadside, two out of every three streetlights were burnt out. Low, squat houses lined both sides of the street, with only a scattered handful of shops—mostly small grocery stores and diners—glowing dimly through the rainy night.

The Land Cruiser ahead came to a stop, and Shen Xing hit his brakes as well. He finally spotted the auto repair shop the Land Cruiser bro had mentioned, but the second he saw it, half his heart sank into cold disappointment.

If it weren’t for the rusty iron sign standing under the streetlight reading “Dawei Auto Repair & Parts”, he might have mistaken this place for a scrap metal yard.

In front of the repair shop was a wide open lot, where several broken, abandoned cars were parked, making the area feel extraordinarily desolate. Coupled with the heavy rain and howling wind, the rusted red iron sign clattered and swayed precariously, making him feel like it might fall and crush his head at any given second.

Everything before his eyes looked like anything but a product of 2025—it had the heavy, gritty atmosphere of a last-century crime movie. Shen Xing stared unblinkingly at the rusted iron gate, half expecting a gang of tough guys holding weapons to burst out the moment it opened, pinning him to the ground and beating him up.

If Shen Xing were alone in a place like this, he would have executed a U-turn and bolted without a second thought. But right now, he pulled out his phone and dialed the Land Cruiser bro parked ahead, who had yet to step out of his vehicle.

The call was answered quickly. Though they were strangers, in this unfamiliar place under such harsh weather, the Land Cruiser bro’s deep, low voice brought a comforting sense of security:

“Hello.”

“Ah, it’s me—the guy you’re pulling behind you.”

The voice through the receiver seemed to let out a light laugh:

“I know. I saved your number.”

“Ah, right. Um… judging by the look of this shop, I’m not sure they can actually fix cars?”

Shen Xing’s voice sounded hesitant. Just as the words left his mouth, the rusted iron gate he had been staring at swung open. His eyes widened instantly as a figure carrying a black umbrella stepped out. He subconsciously gripped his phone tighter. A rainy night, a black umbrella…

The person with the black umbrella was walking straight toward him. Shen Xing couldn’t tell if his own imagination was playing tricks on him, but he felt a wave of nervousness as the umbrella drew closer, eventually coming to a stop right outside his driver’s side window.

In the next moment, the umbrella tilted slightly upward, and someone knocked on his car window.

Knock, knock, knock.

He caught a clear view of a woman in her late forties or fifties under the umbrella. She seemed to be shouting something at him loudly, but between the heavy rain outside and the Audi’s decent soundproofing, Shen Xing couldn’t make out a word.

Soon, the woman outside gestured at him again. Judging by her hand movements, she was pointing at the repair shop’s iron gate, seemingly asking if he wanted to drive inside.

Shen Xing took a deep breath and rolled down his window just a crack. The chilly wind mixed with rain blasted straight into his face, followed by a heavy regional dialect:

“Fixing the car?”

Perhaps because he wasn’t used to the local dialect, he felt the shop owner’s tone sounded a bit aggressive. Shen Xing didn’t quite dare to get out of the car. Tightening his grip on his phone, his tone was hesitant as he asked the person on the other end of the line:

“Uh… should I get it fixed?”

A calm, steady voice responded from the receiver:

“Wait there. I’ll get down and take a look.”

Shen Xing sat obediently in his car just as promised. He saw the door of the truck ahead swing open, and the man in the black windbreaker stepped out, casually slamming the door shut. With long strides, he walked straight over to Shen Xing’s car.

The woman holding the umbrella looked over as well. Perhaps because the Land Cruiser bro’s height carried an immense sense of pressure—standing next to the woman, his stature formed an absolute physical dominance—half the anxiety in Shen Xing’s chest immediately dissolved, allowing him to roll his window down a bit further.

He heard the Land Cruiser bro explaining the situation of his car to the shop owner. The woman spoke very fast, and with her non-standard Mandarin, Shen Xing could only catch the general gist.

Soon, the Land Cruiser bro walked back over. Shen Xing, feeling entirely out of the loop, held his phone to his ear with one hand while looking up at him, his large eyes filled with a trace of confusion.

“The owner says she needs to see how big the tear in the fuel tank is before she knows whether it can be patched. Want to go inside and take a look?”

Shen Xing certainly hoped it could be patched—at least enough to get him to his destination so he could take it to an authorized dealership later. However, that giant iron gate looked eerie. Going in by himself still made him feel uneasy. Looking up at the man outside through the window, he rubbed his hands against the steering wheel:

“Uh… I don’t really understand what she’s saying. Can you come inside with me?”

The excuse was a bit awkward, but it barely passed as one.

Jiang Lin, whose eyes were accustomed to dealing with criminal suspects on a daily basis, saw right through the anxiety in the depths of Shen Xing’s eyes at a single glance. He leaned closer to the window, the sharp, defined outline of his side profile reflected on the glass by the distant streetlight, and uttered a single word with teasing amusement:

“Scared?”

Shen Xing: … He picked at the steering wheel with his finger again:

“Saying it like that makes me lose face.”

A trace of amusement surfaced in Jiang Lin’s eyes:

“Let’s go then. After all, someone did call me a living Bodhisattva earlier.”

Shen Xing’s eyes lit up instantly:

“You’re a good man! In a bit, I’m treating the living Bodhisattva to a full imperial feast!”