Shen Qi: [Bro! Are you back? What day are you coming in to work?]
Ling Lie: [I’m back, oh. Didn’t you notice the food?]
Shen Qi: [I knew my bro didn’t have these skills! Brother Lie, did you make this? I want some too, I want some too!]
Ling Lie: [Lay on the rainbow farts, I love to hear them.]
Xi Wan: [Hahaha Mr. Ling, does the Chief still charge you rent? Come to my place, I’ll pay you to stay!]
Ling Lie: [Five hundred a month! It’s outrageous!]
Liang Wenxuan: [This is Captain Ji’s fault.]
An Xun: [This is Captain Ji’s fault.]
Ling Lie: [This is Captain Ji’s fault.]
A long, neat chain of replies followed, and even Xie Qing appeared.

Ji Chenjiao: “…”

Ji Chenjiao sent a message to Xie Qing, considered a verbal end to his leave, but said he needed to take Monday off for a trip to Chaoxia County.

Xie Qing was surprised and asked what he was going there for. Ji Chenjiao was too lazy to type, so he went to the balcony and called him. “I heard that Rongmei Rehabilitation Hospital has gathered a group of top psychological experts. I want to go and have another look.”

Xie Qing knew that Ji Chenjiao had seen psychologists before because of his dream, all with no results. He was a little worried. “Has the situation gotten worse recently?”

“Not really, but I want to find the cause and resolve it sooner.”

The two chatted for a while. After hanging up, Ji Chenjiao turned around and saw a head peeking out from behind the curtain by the sliding door between the living room and the balcony.

“…”

Ling Lie: “I heard everything. I’ll go with you, ducky!”

Ji Chenjiao: “Don’t try to be cute.”

Ling Lie wiggled. “Pretty please, ducky!”

Ji Chenjiao decided to imitate him. “Okay, ducky!”

Ling Lie: “…”

Ji Chenjiao: “?”

Ling Lie hugged himself. “Little Ji, the way you talk is so gross.”

Ji Chenjiao almost threw his phone. How could this person have such double standards?

On Monday, Ji Chenjiao avoided the morning rush hour and drove to Chaoxia County. Although it was nominally a county, it was basically a district of the main city. Firstly, it was very close to the city center, and secondly, its economy was well-developed. In the past two years, even its housing prices were approaching those of the city center.

A certain king of double standards sat in the passenger seat playing on his Switch. He was bad at it but addicted. Usually, when he couldn’t pass a level, he would ask Ji Chenjiao for help. Now that Ji Chenjiao was driving, he could only watch himself jump off a cliff again and again.

“Ah, this is no fun,” Ling Lie finally couldn’t take the blow and gave up. “Why am I accompanying you to see a doctor during an autumn heatwave? Wouldn’t it be nice to be at home with the air conditioning on?”

Ji Chenjiao: “Did I ask you to come?”

Besides, a certain someone, in order to save money, would absolutely never turn on the air conditioning.

Ling Lie: “Of course not.”

After half a minute, Ling Lie said, “It’s because my heart is with my boyfriend, and I came voluntarily.”

The car swerved slightly. Ji Chenjiao said steadily, “This is a highway. Please drive safely and do not flirt with the driver at will.”

Rongmei Rehabilitation Hospital was built imposingly. The main building in the south district stood tall like a tower reaching the sky, a symbol of Rongmei. The other smaller buildings surrounded it like guards. From a distance, it didn’t look like a hospital, but more like a bustling summer resort.

Ji Chenjiao parked the car in the north district. There were still twenty minutes until his appointment. Ling Lie waved his hand. “Boyfriend, I want to wander around. I won’t go with you.”

He was like a frolicking cat. The moment he saw something fun, he vanished.

What kind of scummy boyfriend was this!

Ji Chenjiao wasn’t really angry. He arrived at the consultation building on time. The expert was hired from abroad at a high salary. He was gentle and refined, and listened patiently to Ji Chenjiao’s problems.

Ling Lie strolled around the north district. He saw a crowd gathered on a corridor ahead and ran over to see the excitement.

“I’m not staying here! This place is haunted! I want to go back!” A very tall girl with a terrified face was hugging her backpack, trying to run.

“Yunduo! Yunduo! Why won’t you listen? I had such a hard time getting you here, are you letting me down?” A middle-aged woman sat on the ground, crying and shouting, “The money has been paid, the treatment course is set, you can’t be so selfish! How can you go back to the provincial team like this? The doctor said you’re not mentally healthy! Those are all your hallucinations!”

The girl could have run away, but she couldn’t leave the woman. After hesitating for a moment, she returned and squatted down beside her. “I really saw it.”

The woman held onto her tightly. “They’re all hallucinations! You’re taking medicine for your illness, it’s normal to have hallucinations! Yunduo, let’s try again, okay? Do you want to retire just like this?”

The girl shook her head desperately.

The two helped each other up and walked towards Inpatient Building No. 3.

But the commotion didn’t disperse with their departure. Patients, family members, and caregivers were all talking.

“That kid is a volleyball player. Her leg was broken, and she has mental problems too. She was transferred from the south district. They say she saw a ghost on the first day she was admitted, and it scared her so much her mind got even worse.”

“Is it the medicine? Some medicines can cause that.”

“I think so too. But it could also be that she was already having hallucinations. Ai, so pitiful.”

“Who here doesn’t have mental problems? Who isn’t pitiful?”

Ling Lie sighed along with them: Poor Little Ji.

“No way? Someone saw a ghost again?”

“What do you mean ‘again’? Has someone seen one before?”

“I also heard from other family members. A patient in Building No. 3 was scared away last month, also said they saw a ghost in the middle of the night.”

“Hiss, it can’t be that there’s really something dirty, can it?”

“It’s hard to say. Rongmei was originally built to suppress ghosts. They even invited a master to take a look. After all, so many people died in that wholesale market!”

The more everyone talked, the more horrifying it became. They scared themselves and quickly dispersed.

Ling Lie was interested in the accident at the wholesale market and found a caregiver to chat with. The caregiver had a strong sense of belonging to Rongmei and had come to work here as soon as the south district was built. He said he had also worked at the wholesale market before, as a vegetable vendor.

The wholesale market was the largest market in Chaoxia County. Its fire safety facilities were non-existent, and goods were packed tightly in the aisles. More than nine years ago, a flash fire occurred with one family’s goods, burning down the entire market and killing more than a dozen people.

Because it was considered unlucky, no one dared to take over the land. A year later, the Yu Group stepped in, giving a lifeline to people like him who had lost their jobs. The current prosperity of Chaoxia County also relies heavily on the Yu Group.

For such a small county, three commercial properties were developed by the Yu Group. Although the Yu Group’s investment focus in recent years has been on Xiarong City and Dongye City, investing so much in a small county seemed a bit strange.

Ji Chenjiao chatted with the expert for about half an hour. The expert said that the name he was concerned about was very likely his original name, but few people can remember things before the age of three. And it seemed he had suffered some trauma before coming to the orphanage, so he remembered even less. He asked if there was a way to remember. The expert said it varied from person to person, and some things were not necessary to force oneself to remember.

This expert had a very calming presence. It felt less like a treatment and more like some advice and suggestions from the perspective of someone who had been through it.

“You already have a new life and are very satisfied with it, aren’t you? Then why must you remember a past that might not have been very pleasant? Not every question must have an answer. What do you think?”

Leaving the consultation room, Ji Chenjiao went to the smoking area for a cigarette. The expert’s words did have some truth to them. Being haunted by a dream and a name was a foolish thing.

Perhaps one day in the future, he would have the energy to completely solve this problem. But for now, there were more important things waiting for him and Ling Lie to solve.

When Ling Lie learned that Ji Chenjiao had spent several thousand yuan just to chat for half an hour, without getting any medicine or solving his memory problem, he exclaimed that he had been duped.

“Little Ji, why didn’t you come to me if you wanted to chat? I can talk about anything from five thousand years of history. Why be a sucker for someone else when you can be a sucker for me?”

“What kind of black-hearted hospital is this? Is this the quality of the Yu family’s business? They even cheat a poor little policeman out of his hard-earned money? I’ll make them pay in blood!”

“No wonder it’s haunted every day. What kind of ghosts? It’s the cry of the poor souls who died penniless—give me back my hard-earned money!”

Ji Chenjiao’s ears were about to explode. He had to admit that Ling Lie’s ability to influence emotions was very strong. Now he also felt like he was a once-in-a-century sucker. But after calming down, one of Ling Lie’s sentences caught his attention. “What haunting?”

Ling Lie then told him what he had heard.

Ji Chenjiao became somewhat alert. Although feudal superstitions had long been debunked, the practice of using buildings to suppress some vengeful spirits still existed in various places. It was often seen in the news that some office building or residential building was haunted, with a body suppressed underneath. Folk legends of vengeful spirits seeking revenge were hyped up, but they were actually all man-made. Some were just ordinary public security incidents, while others became major criminal cases. In short, due to the high level of social attention, they were very tricky for the police to handle.

After returning to the city, Ling Lie was still heartbroken over the vanished several thousand yuan. Ji Chenjiao was amused by him. “Alright, alright, even I’m not heartbroken.”

But Ling Lie was angered by this sentence. “Boyfriend, are you trying to draw a line between us? Your money, shouldn’t I be heartbroken?”

Only then did Ji Chenjiao realize that having been single for so long, he spoke like a stereotypical straight man. Just as he was thinking of how to coax him, Ling Lie tossed his head, showing him only the back of it.

But the bickering soon ended with a phone call.

The call was from Shen Xun, regarding a clue about the dark web “Fuguang” related to the “Xueton” case, which the special operations team had found.

Hearing that the clue was about “Fuguang,” Ling Lie put the phone on speaker, and he and Ji Chenjiao listened together.

In the cases of Xu Jiajia (Jaco) and Ji Nuocheng in Xiarong City, the police found the entrance to “Fuguang” on their computers. This year, the special operations team had been stumped by several entrepreneur cases in the north, but found a breakthrough in the case of Xiao Yishun in Feng City. He had a computer that had not yet been disposed of, which also contained an entrance to “Fuguang,” but it was more advanced and had higher encryption. This linked to someone trading “Xueton” on “Fuguang,” and Xiao Yishun’s subordinate providing a location for “Xueton” production. “Fuguang” – “Xueton” – Xiao Yishun were officially connected.

And Xiao Yishun’s identity was a successful entrepreneur, and the other victims were also entrepreneurs, and their cities all had a “Xueton” presence. This indicated that they, like Xiao Yishun, were likely once used by “Fuguang” and were eliminated after they lost their value.

This was not just a niche dark web; there must be a huge criminal organization behind it. They were seducing and cultivating their own forces within the country, choosing wealthy people with a certain social status. Initially, they relied on some foreigners, such as the resentful Xu Jiajia.

But a rather contradictory point was, with such a large operation, was “Fuguang” just for spreading “Xueton”? Although this hallucinogen would bring a lot of income to “Fuguang,” it seemed a bit too simple a goal.

After finishing this point, Shen Xun added, “Our understanding of ‘Fuguang’ was too shallow in the past. This time, we tracked a piece of code from Xiao Yishun’s computer entrance and have confirmed it is the same code as the former ‘Chenjin’.”

Ling Lie’s mind buzzed. “Did you say ‘Chenjin’?”

This was a name he would never forget. He was born in “Chenjin.” If Wei Zhiyong hadn’t saved him by a twist of fate, he would have either died in the coldest winter of that murderous village or died under the guns of police from various countries as a “Chenjin” mercenary.

Ji Chenjiao had heard Ling Lie talk about his relationship with “Chenjin.” Seeing the emptiness in Ling Lie’s eyes, he was a little worried and asked, “Captain Shen, as far as I know, ‘Chenjin’ was annihilated in a joint multinational operation many years ago.”

Shen Xun: “I used to think so too, until we found the connection between ‘Chenjin’ and ‘Fuguang’ this time. ‘Fuguang’ used to be very low-key, in stark contrast to other dark webs and criminal organizations. I once doubted its reason for existence. But if ‘Fuguang’ is the remnant force of ‘Chenjin,’ then that explains its low profile. It was dormant after suffering a huge blow, waiting for the next opportunity.”

Ling Lie’s breathing gradually became rapid, as if he had thought of something. Ji Chenjiao’s right hand stroked his back, rubbing the back of his neck, trying to calm him down.

After the call ended, Ji Chenjiao felt Ling Lie trembling slightly, a little surprised by his strong reaction to “Chenjin.”

He tentatively pulled Ling Lie into his arms. Ling Lie didn’t resist at all, like a docile cat after being frightened.

“I thought it was destroyed long ago,” Ling Lie murmured. “Back then, I ran far, far away. I was afraid it was chasing me from behind. Wei Shu and I got separated also because I was scared. I didn’t dare to stay in one place for too long.”

“It’s still here, it’s come for me, it’s chased me to Xiarong. When I was a child, it never found me.”

In Ji Chenjiao’s eyes, Ling Lie suddenly became his childhood self again, thin and small, with chapped lips, standing forlornly outside a McDonald’s.

He found it hard to imagine how such a small child had walked from the city center to the Lily of the Valley Orphanage in the northern suburbs alone. Now, he had to imagine an even smaller Ling Lie escaping from the snowy north to the rainy Xiarong City.

He regretted not having hugged that thin little boy, so now he hugged him with all his might, pulling Ling Lie into his embrace.

Ling Lie struggled slightly, a pained hum coming from his throat. But Ji Chenjiao didn’t let go. “Don’t be afraid, it’s not coming for you.”

The fear from childhood lingered. Ling Lie stubbornly said, “It is, it’s already in Xiarong City.”

“Then there’s no need to be afraid,” Ji Chenjiao held the back of Ling Lie’s head, forcing him to look into his eyes. “Xiarong City is my territory. Don’t run anymore. I’ll protect you.”

Ling Lie shook his head, showing a helpless and lost side.

Before the age of ten, he was often plagued by nightmares of being chased by “Chenjin,” of being caught and taken back to that snowy mountain village. The nightmares only faded as he grew older. At twenty, news from abroad came that “Chenjin” had been completely eliminated by the police of multiple countries. Only then did the shadow that had loomed over him since his childhood completely disappear.

He hadn’t let himself think about “Chenjin” for a long time. But at this moment, the memory became vivid again, and even the despair of being buried in the snow felt as real as if it were happening right now.

A’dou’s first impression of this world was a stinking iron cage. He was curled up inside, surrounded by countless identical cages, and in the cages were many children about his age. Some cages were empty. He later learned that those cages had also had children, but some of them got sick and were thrown into the snow to freeze to death, and some were disobedient and tried to escape, and were beaten to death.

At mealtime, strong men in gray uniforms opened the cages and herded the children to the canteen to eat. Each person had a broken bowl. Crying children would be whipped. A’dou, with his bean-like eyes, curiously looked around—though at that time he was not yet called A’dou. He had no name, only a number. His name was given by his sister, but his sister herself had no name.

A’dou didn’t cry or make a fuss. After eating the hard-to-swallow gruel, he was herded with the others to the open ground to run, play games, and at night, he was locked back in the iron cage. He understood why it was so stinky here, because some children needed to go to the bathroom at night but couldn’t go out, so they had to relieve themselves in the cages.

As days went by, A’dou grew a little older. This batch of children began to receive training. The training content was very cruel. Every day on the open ground, someone would cry loudly and be dragged away by the head. Autumn came to the mountain village, and heavy snow began to fall. For a long time, A’dou thought that if snow accumulated on the ground for a long time, it would automatically turn red.

He often saw a very beautiful child. That child’s eyes were different from his. His pupils were dark brown, but that child’s pupils were ink-green, like the color of the gem on a young instructor’s ring.

Every day, he would move a few more steps to get closer to the child. The child was always crying, his ink-green eyes as red as a rabbit’s. If he couldn’t complete the task, he would be killed like the children who had disappeared from the iron cages.

During a break, A’dou squatted with the child. “Your eyes are so beautiful. Don’t cry.”

The child was still whimpering. He hadn’t completed his killing task for the day. If he still hadn’t completed it by night, he would only have a dead end. “Chenjin” didn’t need useless children.

A’dou now knew that the organization that trained him every day was called “Chenjin,” and that the country he was in was called Country E. “Chenjin” was an organization that would do anything for money, and they were the future blood of “Chenjin.”

A’dou patted the child’s shoulder and whispered, “For the sake of your beautiful eyes, I’ll help you, okay? But we have to be secretive, we can’t let anyone find out.”

The child looked at him in surprise. “Can you really help me?”

Here, even children as small as beans knew that they could only rely on themselves. When they couldn’t even rely on themselves, there was only death ahead.

But A’dou nodded solemnly, a row of small white teeth showing as his lips curved. “Hey! Who told you to have such beautiful eyes? I like to help pretty little babies.”

He had learned the term “little baby” from secretly watching TV, and now it finally came in handy.

The break ended and training resumed. A’dou, taking advantage of the instructor’s inattention, quickly came to the child’s side and swiftly made a cut. Blood splattered on both their faces, making it impossible to tell who was who for a moment. The child was stunned and was about to cry again when A’dou quickly kicked him into the snow, desperately using his eyes and mouth to motion for him to go to his own spot.

The child cried silently but did as A’dou said. At A’dou’s spot, the task was already completed. The child only needed to pretend to be A’dou. A’dou helped the child complete his homework for the day as well and let out a sigh of relief.

When the sun set, the snow turned red again. Three children were taken away, and no one knew what awaited them.

After that, A’dou and the child became friends. But A’dou felt that there was a risk of being discovered if they always cheated, and it wasn’t a solution for the child to always be crying and afraid of blood. So he stopped watching TV and taught the child how to use a knife.

The child was so scared he whimpered and cried. A’dou said with a stern face, “How can you become a ‘Chenjin’ warrior like this?”

The child wiped his tears. “Why do I have to become a ‘Chenjin’ warrior? They are evil!”

A’dou was stunned.

Why become a “Chenjin” warrior? He had never thought about this question.

From as far back as he could remember, he had been indoctrinated—you are a child of “Chenjin,” you grew up on “Chenjin’s” milk, so you have “Chenjin’s” blood in your veins. You absolutely obey “Chenjin” and will shed your last drop of blood for “Chenjin” in the future. This is your mission!

But now, he heard a question from the ink-green-eyed child, his friend, and that fresh new word: evil.

What is evil? Am I evil too?

He shook his head and asked, “What is evil?”

The child, who was usually not one to speak loudly, let out a soft-spoken roar, “Blood that has been dyed red is evil! Iron cages and whips are evil! Knives are evil! All our tasks are evil!”

“But…” A’dou’s mind was dull. “But if we don’t do that, won’t we die?”

“So the most evil is ‘Chenjin’! I don’t want to be a ‘Chenjin’ warrior!” The child was almost hysterical. “If we listen to them, they will make us kill people in the future!”

A buzzing sound went off in A’dou’s ear. He thought of the disappeared children of his own age. “I, I don’t want to kill people!”

The “special training” A’dou had prepared for the child ended before it even began. Not only did he fail to teach the child how to use a knife, but he was also indoctrinated with the idea of what evil was.

It was probably from this day on that the seed of wanting to leave this snowy mountain village, of wanting to escape “Chenjin,” was planted.

But the two children had no idea where to escape to. A’dou asked the child, do you know who your parents are? Where was your home before?

The child shook his head.

Great, he knew nothing, just like him.

A’dou was a little angry, a child’s temper always coming out of nowhere. “All you know is how to cry!”

The child pouted, his eyes turning red again.

A’dou panicked. “I say one thing and you’re about to cry again. You’re so troublesome.”

Though he said that, A’dou still took the child’s hand, helped him with his tasks, and helped him deceive the instructors.

Later, they met Jiejie, a girl who loved to smile, a very gentle smile. The child always argued with A’dou, saying he met Jiejie first, but A’dou insisted he was the first to speak to her.

Jiejie was also a pitiful person trapped in “Chenjin.” But unlike them, Jiejie knew where she came from. She told them that if they left this place and went south, south where it only snowed on the coldest days, pure white snow that would never be stained red, and the rest of the time, the south was as warm as spring.

A’dou and the child yearned for it, saying that one day they would take Jiejie to the south. But Jiejie smiled sadly, with what seemed like tears in her eyes, saying it would be good if they could go, that she had no hope for herself.

Jiejie gave them names, A’dou and A’xue. A’dou felt that Jiejie was a bit biased because A’xue’s name was much nicer than his. A’dou sounded like a blockhead.

But A’dou didn’t mind. If he switched names with A’xue, A’xue, who cried so much, would surely bawl his eyes out.

A’dou had been protecting A’xue even before he had a name. Although A’xue was a few years older than him, he always considered himself the older brother. But under the harsh training day after day, A’xue eventually learned to use a knife to take a small, weak life. That day, A’xue cried bitterly in his arms, the smell of blood lingering for a long time.

His voice was clearly very childish, yet he assured A’xue like the most mature and steady adult, “Just bear with it a little longer, we can definitely escape. I need to get stronger. It’s okay if you’re a little clumsy, I’ll take you with me.”

Jiejie died. Her body stained a large patch of snow red, a shocking sight. It was the largest patch of red A’dou had ever seen. He couldn’t breathe, almost fainting. At this moment, he thoroughly understood what A’xue meant by “evil.”

—Snow dyed red is evil.

Ling Lie returned to reality from the long, gloomy memory, the image of little A’xue still in his mind. He had long forgotten what A’xue looked like, only remembering that his eyes were ink-green, his skin as white as snow, he was timid, loved to cry, and was the last among their batch of children to learn how to use a knife.

A’xue looked at him silently, his face obscured by the red, snowy wind. A’xue’s voice was light and flat, like rootless snow dust. “A’dou, you abandoned me.”

Falling off the cliff was an accident, but the young A’dou couldn’t resist fate. Fate let him meet Wei Zhiyong, brought him to this peaceful land. Fate took him far away from “Chenjin.” He was immersed in nightmares of being chased by “Chenjin,” too busy hiding and escaping to care for his former companion.

There was one thing Ling Lie had always avoided thinking about, which was—A’xue might have been “dealt with” shortly after he fell off the cliff. Because the instructors must have thought his fall was a long-planned escape, and A’xue had either assisted him or was supposed to go with him but failed. A’xue had no way out.

Ling Lie was trembling. Ji Chenjiao stroked his hair, damp with cold sweat, lowered his head, and kissed his forehead. The kiss then landed on the corner of his eye, then his lips.

Ji Chenjiao finally understood why Ling Lie, who had grown up in a wealthy family like the Yu’s, still ate as if he had never eaten before. Ling Lie cherished every food, even eating the side dishes in a stir-fry. It wasn’t because Ling Lie was starved during his wandering days, but because in “Chenjin,” little A’dou had never eaten anything a human should eat. Ling Lie was also very particular about hygiene. If the house was a little dirty, he would clean it immediately. Because little A’dou’s childhood was soaked in filthy blood.

After confiding, Ling Lie’s condition improved. He kissed Ji Chenjiao back, and even kissed his Adam’s apple. They looked at each other for a while, and Ling Lie said, “Boyfriend, you’ve gotten yourself into a lot of trouble.”

He was, of course, referring to himself.

Ji Chenjiao frowned and gently pinched his cheek. “Don’t say that.”

Ling Lie sighed. “You don’t know what kind of organization ‘Chenjin’ is.”