WAM CH54

None of them had expected the investigation to go so smoothly.

With just a list of names—no idea which provinces or cities they were scattered across, no idea how old they were, and with so many people in the world sharing the exact same first and last names—even with other clues, tracking them down should have been like searching for a needle in a haystack.

However, Wang Shan wasn’t as clever as they had assumed, and luck was on their side this time.

“The results are back. There are sixty-eight names on this list in total. Forty-six of them, including Liu Quanmin, Niu Dazhuang, Huang Wei, and Hong Zhiqiang, have criminal records from back then.” Late in the dead of night, Gu Yanzhou sent several images into the WeChat group along with a few voice messages explaining them. “Every single one of them was imprisoned and sent to labor reform under the ‘crime of hooliganism,’ accounting for nearly sixty-eight percent of the total.”

“Sixty-eight percent is definitely not a coincidence. What’s even stranger is that over thirty years ago, they all passed away one after another, with their dates of death concentrated specifically between 1997 and 2003. Their death records look suspicious. Although the causes of death vary, twenty-six of them died in mine collapses, killed instantly with no bodies ever recovered—making up the largest proportion of deaths.”

Shao Si tapped open the two voice messages. Even though Gu Yanzhou’s voice sounded soothing to listen to, the meaning behind his words sent a chill down his spine.

“There’s one more thing. Over a dozen of their family members went to the police station to file reports back then.”

“Some flatly rejected the cause of death being a mine collapse, insisting their families weren’t short on money at all and asking why their child would randomly go work in a mine and die there. They made quite a scene at the precinct, so a few of the veteran officers from those days still remember it.”

Shao Si pressed the record button and leaned closer to his screen to ask, “So you’re saying their death records…”

Gu Yanzhou replied quickly: “Barring any surprises, they were almost certainly all falsified.”

Wang Shan could easily forge a single death record without leaving a trace, but sixty-eight of them? No matter how calculating he was, fabricating sixty-eight death records within a short timeframe was bound to leave plenty of loopholes.

Moreover, Wang Shan was quite arrogant. Perhaps because various administrative systems weren’t well-regulated over thirty years ago, he saw no need to put extra effort into covering his tracks, assuming that even if there were flaws, no one would deliberately dig into them once enough time had passed.

Yet he forgot a simple truth: an obsession held deeply will eventually find an answer.

The obsession they clung to was a single word: freedom. For that freedom, many of them refused to give up even unto death.

After listening to Gu Yanzhou’s voice messages, Shao Si pondered how best to reply. As he thought it over, questions began popping up one after another, impossible to stop: “What move should we make next? Keep getting closer to Wang Shan? And where are those sixty-eight people from back then now?”

…

“Yang Ze should have a clearer idea about that,” Gu Yanzhou said. “Who was the ragged old man who lunged at him that day? Who slipped him the note? Why did he have the final page of Ye Qing’s journal on him? What message was he trying to pass on to us? Could he be one of those sixty-eight people?”

“If he had been locked inside Wang Shan’s underground club all this time, then aside from him, are there any other survivors?”

Zhou Weiping wasn’t in a convenient position to speak aloud. He typed out a long paragraph, only to realize when he finished that Gu Yanzhou had already voiced everything he wanted to express. He deleted the lines of text, paused his fingers, tapped the screen twice, and sent a single sentence: We can’t pull this off on our own.

[So after circling all the way around, you have to cooperate with the police again,] the system remarked. [I thought there’d be a new trick this time.]

Shao Si: [Do you even understand what a society ruled by law means? Going head-to-head with brute force—do you have a death wish?]

[I’m just a system.]

[Enough,] Shao Si lay back on the bed and rolled over. [Speaking of which, though, this mission is way too suffocating. I feel like I’m about to choke to death. If we don’t catch Wang Shan soon, I really am going to suffocate.]

The system fell silent for a moment before saying, [Actually, I’ve never understood why people who commit every evil under the sun often end up living the longest.]

The system rarely spoke in such a philosophical, life-pondering manner.

Just as Shao Si was about to ask further, the system immediately logged off: [Go to sleep early. Good night.]

[…Good night.]

Shao Si closed his eyes and tried several times to fall asleep, only to open them again, realizing that for once in his life, he actually had insomnia.

He reached an arm out from under the blanket to grab his phone off the nightstand. Hooking it over with a few fingers, he scrolled through his WeChat Moments for a bit.

An hour ago, Li Guangzong had posted an utterly neurotic line on his Moments: Me, an expendable existence.

…

Shao Si moved his fingers and left a comment: What kind of fit are you throwing in the middle of the night?

After posting, he exited the app, thinking about playing a round of his game, only to belatedly remember that his account had been leaked not long ago. The moment he logged in, a swarm of fans would definitely crowd around him.

…

Life was truly filled with despair at every turn.

Maybe he should just go to sleep after all.

Mourning the loss of his gaming account, Shao Si let go of his phone and burrowed deeper into the covers.

Right at that moment, his phone chimed with a ding-dong as a message scrolled across the notification bar.

[Gu Yanzhou]: Slutty dead¹, still awake?

[Your Son Shao]: …What the hell is that?

[Gu Yanzhou]: Shao Si.

[Gu Yanzhou]: Sorry, typo.

Gu Yanzhou let out a soft chuckle. He was sitting half-upright on his bed, completely shirtless because the room’s heater was turned up high.

He had just finished discussing matters with Captain Wang. In fact, he had been quietly keeping in touch with Captain Wang on and off for several weeks already.

Captain Wang wanted to help them with this case, but the evidence had always been insufficient. He couldn’t abuse his authority, and procedurally speaking, nothing could be done with such scant proof.

That changed tonight when Gu Yanzhou sent over a copy of all the evidence they had gathered so far.

Captain Wang had fallen silent for a long while before deciding to make an exception and provide them with police backing.

The evidence still wasn’t completely airtight, yet it was more than enough to reveal the gravity of the problem. In the end, Captain Wang waved his hand decisively: “Go ahead and do what you need to do. If anything goes wrong, I’ll take the heat for you. Contact me anytime you need backup.”

Gu Yanzhou joked, “Hope you’re not just doing this as a favor to my uncle-in-law.”

Captain Wang replied, “Of course not. In our line of work, responsibility only means something when the people actually need you. Ever since you first brought this up to me, I’ve been looking into it on the side, and it truly is fishy. Rules are important, sure, but rules shouldn’t tie our hands to death. Your evidence might still be lacking, but in my eyes, it already speaks volumes.”

Gu Yanzhou stared at Shao Si’s WeChat profile picture, and finally unable to hold back, dialed his number.

“Gu Yanzhou?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Shao Si sat up in bed, the blanket slipping off his shoulders to reveal the loose cotton T-shirt underneath. He ruffled his hair and squinted as he asked, “What’s up? Did Wang Shan make a move?”

No one spoke on the other end of the line, yet Shao Si could clearly hear Gu Yanzhou’s breathing. He waited a moment until the man finally said, “Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“…” Gripping his phone, Shao Si felt that voice brush against his ear like a feather, then travel straight down to tickle his heart.

“Why are you still awake so late tonight?” Gu Yanzhou asked. “I just saw the comment you left for Li Guangzong.”

The taut string in Shao Si’s head loosened. He flopped back onto the bed and confessed, “…I can’t really fall asleep.”

“Aren’t you usually able to sleep anywhere and everywhere?”

Shao Si rolled over and curled his lip: “I’m not a pig.”

“Don’t overthink things. Everything will work out.” Gu Yanzhou’s voice carried a gentleness that made Shao Si feel as though an invisible hand were softly patting his head. “It’ll all be over soon. Even though it’s overdue, justice will definitely come.”

Shao Si finally felt a wave of drowsiness, though he still wanted to listen to Gu Yanzhou talk a little longer, keeping his heavy eyelids propped open against sleep.

Gu Yanzhou, however, noticed the other man’s breathing growing slower and deeper. He paused and called out softly, “Shao Si.”

With his eyes already completely shut, Shao Si dragged out a sluggish, half-asleep reply: “…Mhm.”

“Go to sleep,” Gu Yanzhou swallowed back the words he had originally wanted to say, settling instead on, “Good night.”

…

Good night.

The hands of the clock turned round and round as the dark sky gradually brightened, until a pale streak of dawn lit the horizon and the city truly woke up. People threw themselves back into their busy routines, accompanied by the shouts of breakfast street vendors and the increasingly chaotic honking of car horns.

For once, Shao Si woke up early. Stretching lazily, he climbed out of bed and drew open the curtains, letting the morning sunlight spill inside.

It was a fine day.

Yet what they had to do today was anything but easy.

Today was another one of Wang Shan’s fixed dates for inspecting Zuisheng Mengsi. They needed to lure Wang Shan into bringing them inside, because only by getting in would they have a chance to find the victims from all those years ago.

To prevent Wang Shan from disposing of every last one of them, they had to act fast…

They had to act fast.

Gu Yanzhou had been the one following up with Wang Shan all along. Gu Yanzhou’s social skills were second to none; even a pervert like Wang Shan had openly expressed his appreciation for him on set.

“No need to go through all that trouble,” Gu Yanzhou said, vetoing several versions of the action plan proposed by Director Ou. “Just ask him directly. He won’t refuse.”

Director Ou didn’t catch on right away: “Ask him what directly?”

Gu Yanzhou held up his phone screen, displaying the chat logs between him and Wang Shan from the past day.

[Wang Shan]: Little Zhou, let’s be honest here. I’m very interested in your Shao Si.

[Gu Yanzhou]: What are you getting at, Brother Wang?

[Gu Yanzhou]: I don’t want to walk away empty-handed either. What kind of trade is Brother Wang planning to offer me?

[Wang Shan]: Haha, you young folks sure know how to play. A trade—sounds great!

[Wang Shan]: I just got my hands on a young model over here. Perky ass, and skin so fair it practically glows.

Shao Si: “…”

Director Ou: “…”

They had known for a while that Gu Yanzhou was on good terms with Wang Shan and had used a special approach to get close to him—a rather twisted approach at that—but they had never experienced it quite this bluntly before.

“Disgusting.”

Unable to bear looking directly at the screen, Shao Si couldn’t help adding in admiration, “Gu Yanzhou, I salute you as a real man.”