“Boss Jin, were you bargaining with me?”

Yu Baijin tilted his head and calculated.

“Mm… it was worth four fingers, two eyeballs, plus a tongue.”

The cigar that had been left to rest stopped burning, and Jin Wei’s smiling face collapsed just as quickly, like ash that suddenly fell away.

Seeing that the situation was turning bad, one of the thugs at the side was just about to make a move when he was stopped by that hand missing its little finger.

“Save it. You’re no match for him. Madmen don’t care about their lives—how could you afford to provoke someone like that?”

He snapped his fingers and ordered the lackey who had brought us here.

“Go. Call that kid who watches the warehouse.

“Didn’t he say yesterday that he saw a group of people looking for a woman? Hurry it up—don’t let the lunatic get another chance to act up. I can’t keep him under control.”

My heart jumped violently.

She had escaped?

Not long after, the office door was pushed open. 

A boy who looked about eighteen or nineteen hunched his back as he came in. 

He was skinny, his jacket so oversized it flapped in the wind. 

He bowed to everyone he saw and timidly called out to Jin Wei, “Big brother.”

“What’s your name? Forget it.”

Jin Wei gave him only a fleeting glance before lowering his head to tease the mink in his arms.

“You were on patrol before ‘opening’ yesterday. Did you run into anyone? Tell us.”

“I…”

“Think carefully before you speak.”

Jin Wei warned him sharply. 

His thick eyelids drooped, and he immediately lost interest in any deal that didn’t make money. 

His tone grew impatient.

“If you say the wrong thing, I won’t be able to protect you.”

The boy nodded frantically. 

A baseball cap was pulled low over his dry, dyed-yellow hair, the brim pressed down so far that I could only catch a sliver of his profile from the side. 

A scar cut across his right brow bone, breaking the eyebrow in two. 

Beneath it, his eyeball rolled uneasily.

“There was a group of men who asked me whether I’d seen a little girl who ran out wearing pajamas.

“They showed me a photo. She had black hair, straight bangs—a girl, a girl with very fair skin. She was quite pretty…”

The shy tone he used when talking about the opposite sex made the slightly older thugs in the room snort with laughter. 

The boy lowered his head even further, then bent over and gestured at his own leg.

“They said her left leg wasn’t very good.”

“It was her.”

Yu Baijin and I exchanged glances, reading the same unspoken thought on each other’s faces:
Thank goodness she wasn’t dead.

She was still alive.

Although the truth of the information was uncertain and it was far too early to relax, I still gained a sliver of breathing room from the boy’s words. 

I steadied myself and forced my voice to remain calm.

“So where did you see her? Was she injured? What were the people looking for her like?”

“No! I didn’t know her—I didn’t see—”

The boy waved his hands repeatedly, shaking his head like a rattle drum.

“The place where that group stopped me…”

He was inarticulate and didn’t look particularly bright. 

His halting explanation came out poorly. 

Several times he craned his neck to check his boss’s expression, until Jin Wei waved him away twice like he was swatting flies.

“Take them there.

“Fuck, guess I’m just unlucky. Last month that damn girl smashed up my place, this month I ran into you. Don’t do anything next month—go burn some incense at a temple!”

“Thanks, Boss Jin.”

Yu Baijin jumped down from the coffee table with a cheerful smile, pressed his palms together, and said,

“Wishing you great fortune and survival—may you die but not stiffen…”

“Get lost! Get the hell out!”

The boy walked ahead of us, slightly hunched, constantly kicking at pebbles. 

He tried hard to appear carefree as he led us onto a small path outside the service station, taking a long detour before reentering the forest.

To be honest, I didn’t trust Jin Wei. 

Or rather, someone as profit-driven as him offering favors proactively was deeply suspicious.

Perhaps Rong Wanqing was in his hands, waiting for a chance to extort Rong Zheng. 

Or perhaps he was deliberately concealing the truth, colluding with the killer, and leading us into a trap. 

Either was possible. I had already prepared myself for the worst.

But this boy in front of us—

I was just about to ask Yu Baijin for his opinion when I suddenly noticed that when the boy walked too fast, his left foot bounced unevenly.

He really was a little lame.

Not wanting the boy to hear our conversation, I kept my eyes forward and continued walking as usual. 

With my right hand, I flipped Yu Baijin’s left hand over and spread it open, writing stroke by stroke in his palm:

Is this a trap?

I deliberately added a question mark to show doubt rather than rash judgment. 

Perhaps deep down, I was unwilling to accept that a limping teenage boy might be complicit. 

Even if he was unaware and merely foolish—used as bait—I no longer dared to be certain. 

My judgment of people had long since lost its accuracy.

Ever since I met Yu Baijin.

At that moment, he walked at my right side, likewise staring straight ahead. 

His posture was relaxed, always carrying a spring-breeze-like ease. 

Whether he had just kissed someone or just killed someone, whether he pulled out a gun or a rose—in his worldview, those utterly unrelated, diametrically opposed things could be easily converted and coexist harmoniously without causing him conflict or pain. 

That was why he was always cheerful, focused, and emotionally stable.

It was enough to make one jealous.

Dappled light filtered through overlapping branches and swaying leaves, flowing like molten gold across the side of his face. 

His lashes were lowered slightly as he waited unhurriedly for me to finish writing. 

He closed his fingers, as if grasping a secret key, a coded phrase. 

His curled fist pressed against his mouth and nose as he took a deep breath.

Then he turned toward me, eyes shimmering.

“Writing in my palm—baby, you’re really good at that.”

“…”

Hearing movement behind him, the boy turned his head in confusion. 

All he saw was me gripping Yu Baijin’s throat, both of us red-faced, as if an internal conflict had broken out and one of us had to die halfway through.

“Hey, kid.”

Yu Baijin suppressed a cough and tried to strike up a conversation.

“You run errands for Jin Wei—do you know what he does?”

The boy said nothing.

“Bad things,” Yu Baijin continued to himself. 

“Money laundering, drug trafficking, arms smuggling, human trafficking. Any one of those is a capital crime. Aren’t you afraid?”

Our feet brushed through the grass along the winding path that barely qualified as a “road.” 

Right in the middle grew a large cluster of cobalt-blue wildflowers, their five-pointed petals blooming brilliantly. 

Yu Baijin lifted his leg high to step over them, as if he genuinely cared for and cherished them.

“You’re still young. Even if you’ve taken the wrong path, you still have a chance to turn back. If you wait any longer, it might be too late.”

I didn’t respond—only looked at him. 

He also looked at me with those captivating eyes.

“Go to school. Make friends. Fall in love… yes, at your age, you should fall in love,” he said to me. 

“Love won’t destroy you.”

But it would destroy me.

“Enough.”

I stopped observing and stepped forward, gripping the boy’s frail shoulders.

“Where were you still taking us?

“Speak. What did Jin Wei instruct you to do? Tell us the truth, and I’ll let you go.”

He stopped walking.

I had a very bad feeling.

My patience was running thin, along with a terrifying sense of déjà vu. 

A similar situation and setting seemed to have appeared in my distant memories: a missing woman, danger lurking everywhere, and a gray warehouse hidden silently among the trees, its purpose unknown.

“I… I lied…”

The boy said, trembling.

“Before those people stopped me… I first… ran into her. She told me… someone was trying to kill her and begged me to help…

“She was wearing slippers. Her hair was a mess… I didn’t want to get into trouble, and I didn’t want to hurt her… I told her to hide in the warehouse where Brother Jin stored his inventory.

“I’m sorry…”

He broke down crying.

“They must have already caught her.”