WAM CH23.1

When Gu Yanzhou came over, he drove his own car, so it was very convenient for the two of them to rush over now.

However, Shao Si had a habit of lying down in the back seat when riding in a car. Just as he skillfully pulled open the back door, Gu Yanzhou yanked him back: “What are you running to the back for?”

“…”

Although Gu Yanzhou hadn’t interacted with him much, he had some understanding of certain aspects of his character. He looked Shao Si up and down and asked, “Sleepy?”

“No,” Shao Si defended himself without changing his expression. “I’m not someone who only knows how to sleep all day.”

“Is that so?” Gu Yanzhou was noncommittal.

After getting in the car, Shao Si lit up his phone screen again and discovered the call surprisingly hadn’t disconnected yet. He massaged his temples: “…Was everything we just said heard?”

Gu Yanzhou stepped on the gas and turned the steering wheel, only then having the time to spare a glance at Shao Si: “Probably not. Liu Qi threw the phone away after shouting. Take a listen.”

Indeed, it wasn’t.

Almost no sound could be heard from the phone. Even if there were some noises, transmitted through the earpiece and the air, they became distant and muffled.

“Footsteps,” Shao Si pressed the earpiece against his ear, listened for a moment, and focused his attention. “He’s speaking.”

At this moment, Liu Qi was huddled in a corner, trembling uncontrollably. The white nightgown she wore had already been torn by Lu Jiahui, revealing her shivering pale cleavage.

“Don’t come any closer. What exactly do you want to do…”

Lu Jiahui’s expression was very wrong right now, his pupils dilated. That normally simple and honest face looked entirely ferocious at this moment, the flesh on his face twitching slightly. He slowly approached Liu Qi, but called out another person’s name: “Fangfang…”

“Fangfang, I have money now. I have a lot of money. I can take you to live a good life.” As Lu Jiahui spoke, he walked over and pulled Liu Qi into his arms. “Let’s go abroad. We can go to whichever country you want to go to, okay?”

Liu Qi’s voice trembled so much she almost ran out of breath. She raised her hands to push him, but couldn’t exert any strength: “Hui-ge, I’m not Fangfang. Look closely, I am Liu Qi.”

“You’re not Fangfang?” Lu Jiahui’s originally somewhat gentle expression began to crack, his eyes filling with bloodshot veins.

He seemed a bit irritable, but quickly suppressed it. He even pulled up what he thought was a kind smile: “Fangfang, stop joking around. You are my Fangfang.”

Facing this incredibly bizarre and terrifying face that was so close at hand, Liu Qi’s heart contracted sharply.

Gu Yanzhou listened for a few minutes and stepped on the gas to accelerate: “If she is smart enough, she should use Fangfang’s identity to stall Lu Jiahui for now.”

Shao Si: “I’m guessing she isn’t smart enough.”

Gu Yanzhou: “I think so too.”

“But Lu Jiahui’s condition isn’t right. You can tell from his voice—the cadence, the fluctuations, the tone—none of it falls within the realm of a normal person,” Gu Yanzhou added. “He’s either drunk too much or high on drugs. Looking at the whole situation, I lean towards the latter.”

“Gu-shixiong, there are legends about you in the martial world saying you are the textbook of the acting department. It seems it’s not blind praise.” Shao Si was originally very anxious, but talking with Gu Yanzhou, in just two or three sentences, he inexplicably calmed down.

This man, Gu Yanzhou, was like a powerful tranquilizer.

“Mhm, I truly deserve the reputation.”

“…You really aren’t modest.”

Gu Yanzhou steered the wheel with one hand and tugged at his tie, instantly loosening his collar. Having not seen him for over half a month, his hair seemed to have gotten shorter.

“Fangfang, Fangfang…” Shao Si withdrew his assessing gaze and muttered to himself. He rested his hand against the car window, his fingers tapping lightly as he picked up the trivial details from the film set earlier.

“Liu Qi’s looks are average, and she has no experience. After Yang Yinyin died, Lu Jiahui could have completely found a much more suitable candidate than her.”

But he didn’t. Thinking carefully about it now, the fact that Lu Jiahui fought for the female lead role in The Demon Prince for Liu Qi was also laced with strangeness.

“How did he promote Yang Yinyin back in the day?” Shao Si recalled. “He merely got her a second female lead role, playing a wandering woman in Director Hu’s movie, with a mediocre performance.”

Shao Si also recalled the opening ceremony that day, how Lu Jiahui’s hand had rested on Liu Qi’s waist the entire time.

…

“Ask Captain Wang.” Gu Yanzhou finished setting up the GPS navigation, adjusting to a more convenient route. “He’s been digging into Lu Jiahui for so long, he should know this little detail.”

The sky was gradually darkening, signaling a coming storm.

Shao Si had originally left a crack in the window for fresh air, but now even the wind drilling in through that tiny crack made one shiver all over.

“Not necessarily,” Shao Si said. “This Fangfang must look very similar to Liu Qi, or be similar in some other aspect. If the police had found this out, their surveillance of Liu Qi wouldn’t have been so lax.”

In fact, Shao Si hit the nail on the head.

Captain Wang and his team indeed hadn’t found out anything about a ‘Fangfang’.

Lu Jiahui was very cautious. After all, he was in this line of work and it involved such massive interests. He knew how to talk to people and how to talk to ghosts; his words were half true and half false, and he kept a very tight lip.

The phone was silent for a long time. Perhaps Lu Jiahui tried to make a further move, for Liu Qi suddenly erupted, shouting “Don’t touch me,” followed by the sound of shattering porcelain.

“Fangfang…”

Liu Qi’s strength was still too small. Even with her desperate smash, it only scraped the skin on Lu Jiahui’s temple, making it bleed. Lu Jiahui was thoroughly enraged. He viciously yanked Liu Qi up and pinned her against the wall: “You bitch! Back then you despised me for having no money! Now I have money, what else are you dissatisfied with?!”

“Are you going to leave me again?” Lu Jiahui laughed maniacally. “…No, I won’t let you escape a second time.”

“Let’s go die together.”

…

Shao Si felt a wave of chills hearing this.

That voice sounded as if it had been soaked in hell for years before slowly bubbling up to the surface.

“Seriously sick,” Gu Yanzhou commented, then shifted gears, “Sit tight.”

Before Shao Si could react, the car’s speed sharply increased. He felt as if he had just been riding a bicycle and suddenly strapped onto a rocket, almost thrown out of his seat.

Gu Yanzhou was drag racing.

Watching the ‘gentle and refined’ Gu Yanzhou actually drag racing—and with such skillful driving techniques at that.

Looking at his current appearance, Shao Si felt he was just like those wild and domineering men in movies, vulgar, arrogant, and sharp.

“Surprised?”

Shao Si blinked.

“In the past, I was a punk.” Gu Yanzhou hadn’t raced a car in a long time. He slowly narrowed his eyes, shifting the car’s speed up another gear as he spoke. “…Got tattoos, drank heavily, grew my bangs incredibly long and dyed them, wore an earring—a flashy black diamond stud.”

“Fought with people all day, reeking of hostility like a savage.”

“…” Having no intention of listening to Gu Yanzhou’s youthful follies, Shao Si touched his nose and said, “I’m just a little nauseous. You’re driving too fast, I’m getting carsick.”

Captain Wang’s side quickly intercepted this phone call, assigning a specialist at the police station to monitor it.

“Go investigate this Fangfang, as well as the surveillance cameras at all the intersections on Panshan Road, and all residential areas on Panshan Road starting with ‘Green’ (Lu). This place should be Lu Jiahui’s private property, but it might not be registered under his name.”

After giving the orders, Captain Wang heard faint honking and the whooshing sound of wind from Shao Si’s end: “What are you two doing now?”

Shao Si rolled up the crack in the car window, blocking out the honking outside, and said without batting an eye: “I’m at home.”

Captain Wang: “Is that so?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you dare act recklessly, you think I don’t know, huh?” Captain Wang waved his sleeve. “Think clearly for yourselves before you do anything.”

At this moment, Gu Yanzhou stopped the car, gesturing to him that they had arrived at ‘Panshan Road’.

This area was the suburbs.

A bit desolate.

Along the entire Panshan Road, there were only a few residences in the nearby mountains.

On the other side, after the male officer responsible for staking out Liu Qi’s house barged in, the person inside was indeed not Liu Qi.

She was just wearing Liu Qi’s clothes, and her height and hairstyle were very similar.

If he watched a few more TV dramas, he would have recognized that she was third-tier actress Qin Qing.

This Qin Qing initially refused to admit she was impersonating Liu Qi, claiming she just had a good relationship with Liu Qi and was only crashing at her place.

But when the police laid the hard evidence piece by piece in front of her, she panicked: “…He forced me, I had no choice, I am also a victim, Officer!”

“He told me to knock Liu Qi unconscious and then carry her to a black Jeep at the back gate of the residential complex. He said that corner was very safe, with no surveillance.” Qin Qing tightly gripped the hem of her clothes with several fingers, wrinkling the fabric. “I don’t know where he took her.”

“Why did you help him?”

“…”

Looking at Qin Qing’s expression, one could largely guess the reason.

She was probably also a client in Lu Jiahui’s ‘business’.

The male officer slapped the files in his hand onto the table and said, “Someone come here and take her for a urine test.”

There were absolutely no residential areas starting with ‘Green’ on Panshan Road.

“This road is only so long in total,” Shao Si paced around at the foot of the mountain. “I asked a few locals and they all said they didn’t know. The only livable places here are a few rows of single-family villas in the mountains.”

Gu Yanzhou patrolled the vicinity for a lap, then said, “Let’s go up the mountain to take a look.”

“It’s completely dark now,” Gu Yanzhou said as he walked upward. “The mountain is damp, and the rain showers just passed a few days ago, so be careful when walking.”

The forest in the mountains was dense, the ground uneven. Sometimes, after taking a few steps, muddy water would splash and stick to the pant legs upon lifting a foot. Especially for someone like Shao Si, who exposed his ankles year-round, the mud and sand stuck directly to his ankles.

[…Out in the wilderness, you two are destined to have a frightful night tonight.]

[Are you that bored?] Shao Si said as he stepped into another pothole. [Fuck.]

[Being serious, Liu Qi’s vital signs have become very weak right now. So I can feel that she is nearby.]

This was also one of the broken system’s few abilities.

Within a certain range, it could detect sharply weakening signs of life.

“Let’s go die together.”

This phrase from Lu Jiahui haunted Shao Si like an unyielding ghost, surfacing in his ears once more.

Especially since he was currently walking in the deep mountains. Beside his ears were the cries of unknown birds or reptiles, and the sound of the wind drilling through the trees, making it seem exceptionally gloomy and cold.

“This ‘Green’ (Lu), could it actually not be ‘Green’?” Shao Si was lost in thought, and accidentally missed a step on the stone stairs, tumbling forward and landing right on Gu Yanzhou’s back.

Gu Yanzhou’s footsteps paused, and he turned his head, asking, “What do you mean?”

Shao Si steadied his body and gestured, “For example, the number ‘Six’ (Liu)?”

When Liu Qi spoke at the time, her articulation was already muffled. Given that there was no ‘Green’ here, only single-family detached houses, Shao Si made this guess.

There was no residential complex, but there had to be house numbers, right?

“Stick your hand out,” Gu Yanzhou said while turning on his phone’s flashlight, turning his body sideways.

Shao Si held out his hand in confusion, only to have Gu Yanzhou immediately grab hold of it.

“Six,” Gu Yanzhou held his hand with one hand, while his other hand pulled his phone from his coat pocket and turned on the flashlight. A beam of light poured out from the back of the phone, drilling straight into the darkness of the night. “Let’s go over and check the house numbers.”

Shao Si’s guess was not wrong, it’s just that they were currently still wandering at the foot of the mountain, where all the house numbers started with a ‘1’.

“The higher we go, the bigger the numbers.” Gu Yanzhou stepped closer, raised his hand to hold up the phone, and could see that the doors of the few sparse villas all had house numbers hung on them. After checking a few, he became even more certain of this guess. Then his tone paused, and he asked, “Can you walk properly?”

“…” Shao Si stated frankly, “Then can you let go of my hand?”

Walking is just walking, what’s with all this pulling and tugging?

Gu Yanzhou simply saw that the way he walked gave off a feeling that he could fall at any moment. Hearing him say this, he let go as requested, and casually warned, “Next time you fall forward, don’t crash into me.”

“You say that like I don’t know how to walk.” Shao Si intentionally didn’t follow in Gu Yanzhou’s footprints, walking faster and faster, until his foot slipped again.

“…”

Fortunately, he steadied himself in time, salvaging his pride.

Shao Si coughed lightly, turning his head back to see Gu Yanzhou looking at him expressionlessly, as if silently mocking him.

He circled back behind Gu Yanzhou again, then took the initiative to reach out and grab the hand Gu Yanzhou had just used to hold his. Acting as if nothing had just happened, he said shamelessly, “…This road is really fucking hard to walk on. Hold my hand, I’m afraid you’ll fall.”

Gu Yanzhou couldn’t be bothered to argue with him.

When house numbers starting with ‘5’ appeared, they were already nearing the mountaintop.

Even though they moved very fast, and even broke into a run later after getting a feel for the road conditions, they still harbored a lingering worry that Liu Qi wouldn’t make it.

[Not dead yet, but getting close,] the system said. [The closer we get, the more I can feel her fluctuations. Very unstable. Not good.]

[How much longer can she hold on?]

[No more than twenty minutes.]

When they reached the top of the mountain, they saw three houses.

601, 602, and 603.

Liu Qi had indeed been scared out of her mind at the beginning, but struggling continuously would only further enrage Lu Jiahui.

In her desperation, her mind went blank, and then, at the very brink of death, her IQ finally came online.

While Lu Jiahui was strangling her neck like a madman, Liu Qi, pinned beneath him, struggled to say: “Jiahui… I love you.”

Lu Jiahui’s expression froze.

Liu Qi raised her hand to caress his face: “…I am Fangfang.”

“602 can be ruled out, the house is very lively.” Gu Yanzhou pointed to the two sides. “You go to 601, I’ll go to 603.”

[Shao Shao, it’s 601, I’ve already sensed it. Quickly tell him, 601, charge straight in.]

[Are you stupid? In this situation, how would I know it’s in 601?]

[…Just say, it’s your intuition?]

[Intuition my ass.]

[Are there any alarms? Do they keep dogs inside?] Shao Si walked to the front gate, observing. [Why is the Major Crimes Unit arriving even slower than we did?]