Author's Preface
Meimei nodded, committing every word to memory, though the confusion remained written across her face.
"If you go there..." Yu Ji continued, "Tell him what's happening. Then take him to where the evidence is hidden."
She lowered her gaze. "If everything goes well...There is a chance I might be saved."
Meimei frowned. "Why do you say only a chance?"
Yu Ji froze. The thought had clearly only just reached her. "What if..." She looked up in alarm.
"What if he's working with them too?" Her breathing quickened. "No." She shook her head repeatedly. "Forget about it. We can't. If he's with them..." Her eyes widened with fear, and she was unable to finish her sentence.
She paused for a long moment before adding. "Then you'll die too."
"I can't..." She swallowed hard. "I can't handle that."
The room fell quiet once more.
Meimei slowly sat back, the weight of the decision settling onto her shoulders.
After a long moment, something occurred to her. She looked directly at Yu Ji. "Who told you about this?"
Yu Ji let out another weary sigh. It seemed as though every answer she gave only birthed two more questions. "It's... a complicated story."
The words had barely left her mouth before she remembered Meimei's expression every time she had hidden her feelings behind that excuse. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, then hurried to correct herself before the other woman could interrupt.
"A month ago, my useless brother was caught with a spirit narcotic called Dream Ash. Back then, it was just starting to appear more frequently in the city, so the Guards' Office was taking every case involving it very seriously. If they found you carrying even a little more than what they considered a consumption amount, they'd cripple your cultivation, bury your family in debt, and throw you into Blackwater Hold for at least three years."
She slowly looked up. "Can you guess who the captain was that caught him?"
Meimei's eyes widened, and a horrifying realization struck her. "Don't tell me...That sick bastard?" A heartbeat later, another realization followed. "A month ago..." Her voice became quieter. "That's why you suddenly stopped talking to me?"
Yu Ji merely looked back before lowering her gaze with another defeated sigh. "He tried to blackmail me for sexual favors, the twisted scum."
The bitterness in her voice lingered for only a moment before it gave way to a hollow smile. "Fortunately..." She couldn't help noticing the irony herself. "Someone he worked with heard about it from somewhere and convinced him to change his mind. Instead of that, they wanted me to work for them."
Her fingers unconsciously tightened around the floral cover of the mattress. "But that was never that person's real goal. After I accepted, and after I swore I wouldn't tell anyone and would deal with everything myself, someone leaked our agreement to the captain only a day later."
"They weren't interested in someone like me." Her voice grew softer. "They wanted him. Someone with authority. Someone respected. Someone capable of getting things done. The captain struck some kind of deal with them. The case against my brother disappeared, and after that...They just stopped contacting me."
Meimei slowly exhaled. "Mark is really..." She smiled sadly. "I remember how much I liked him, even though we only met that one time."
Yu Ji nodded faintly. "After that, the captain never mentioned any of it again. Not to me, not to anyone else on the team." She stared absentmindedly toward the window. "But I started noticing little things. Our patrol route changed. Sometimes he'd stop in the middle of patrol to speak with strangers. Other times he'd disappear into buildings for a while before catching up with us."
"I asked him about it more than once." She muttered weakly. "He never answered...Until this morning."
Meimei leaned forward. "What did he say?"
"He said..." Yu Ji's expression grew distant as she recalled his words. "That he thought it'd just be something involving money. Maybe a few illegal deals. Something small that wouldn't really hurt anyone."
Her eyes slowly drifted shut. "But last week, during one of the jobs they had him do, he saw them transporting a woman."
The room fell silent. "She'd been drugged. She wasn't even awake. They had stuffed her inside a wooden crate." Yu Ji's voice became almost inaudible. "...like a pile of vegetables."
A long moment passed before she continued. "That's when he started secretly gathering evidence against the people involved..."
She looked directly at Meimei. "Yesterday, he told me where he had hidden the evidence. And he gave me some instructions."
Meimei frowned. "Instructions?"
"The Chief of the Internal Affairs Division." Yu Ji answered immediately. "What I told you earlier, and he told me to wait for him at Bellow Oak Park, by the bench where we used to sit."
"If he hadn't arrived by ten sharp, I was supposed to use some counter-tracking powder together with a masking talisman, then head to Quiet Reed Pavilion and wait for the chief there."
"Wait..." Meimei shook her head. "I still don't understand."
She searched Yu Ji's face. "Did he..."
Yu Ji nodded before she could finish. "I think they discovered he was gathering evidence."
"He suspected as much." A faint, exhausted smile crossed her lips. "Me hiding away while knowing where the evidence was hidden...that was his insurance. His only bargaining chip."
She lowered her eyes to the blood staining her clothes. "But..."
Meimei quietly finished the thought for her.
"They didn't care." She said. "They'd already expected him to do that, and they knew exactly where to find you."
Yu Ji gave the slightest nod. "Yes."
Meimei remained silent for several seconds before another thought occurred to her. "But if you managed to escape... then they can't be that powerful, can they?"
"I was just lucky." Yu Ji's hand drifted unconsciously toward her wound, remembering what had happened. "The captain had hidden a very expensive peak one-star talisman somewhere in my clothes without telling me. The moment I was injured, it activated by itself, and it carried me all the way here."
Silence settled over the room, not oppressive this time, but thoughtful. Meimei lowered her head, weighing everything she had heard, her fingers slowly interlocking before tightening into a firm clasp. When she finally looked up again, the hesitation had vanished from her eyes.
"I've decided." She rose from the mattress and walked toward the wooden coat stand near the entrance. Taking down her dark brown coat, she slipped it over her shoulders before fastening it with deliberate movements, never once looking back.
"I'll continue the plan." Her voice was calm. Resolute. "We can't let the captain's effort..." She paused while fastening the final clasp. "Or his life be for nothing."
"Go get him." Wang Jie commanded as faint footsteps echoed from downstairs.
Two guards disappeared below and returned moments later with little difficulty, dragging along a thoroughly drunk man. By the time they reached the living room upstairs, the unfamiliar surroundings and the sight of armed strangers had sobered him considerably.
"W-Who are you people?" His frightened gaze darted across the room before freezing on the two bloodied figures tied to chairs. "Mother... Father!"
He struggled wildly against the guards restraining him. "What happened? Who are these people?"
The father let out a weary sigh. "Of all the days you had to come home early..."
The remark didn't escape Wang Jie.
"Listen here, drunk boy." He smiled pleasantly as he folded his hands behind his back. "There's some information I need from your family, and you're going to give it to me."
"Information...?" the young man muttered blankly.
"Yes." Wang Jie nodded with obvious satisfaction. "But before I even ask, I usually like showing people what I'm about. I find it sets the proper atmosphere for negotiation. After all, even though you're a little more than a helpless chicken, you can still choose not to say anything."
The guards acted without another word.
Two swept his legs out from beneath him with heavy kicks to the backs of his knees, forcing him onto them. Before he could react, a third drove a fist into his face.
The blow hurled him across the wooden floor.
Blood and broken teeth spilled from his mouth as a pitiful sob escaped him.
"Take it easy, damn it," Wang Jie complained, waving a hand dismissively. "He's just a mortal."
The two guards hurriedly hauled him upright again.
"W-What... no... what do you want...?"
A fist buried itself in his stomach.
"I'll give y-"
Another punch cut him off.
Wang Jie frowned. "For some reason, his voice is very unpleasant to listen to." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "As much as I'd like him to shut up, don't touch his mouth again. He'll need it if he's going to answer me."
Turning back toward the window, he quietly admired the moonlit neighborhood while the beating continued behind him.
It lasted a full two minutes.
Only then did he turn around, and with that, the punches stopped.
The guards pulled the battered young man to his feet, barely managing to keep him standing.
"So," Wang Jie said almost conversationally, "where can I find your sister?"
Silence lingered while the young man struggled to breathe.
He finally raised his head, lips trembling as he prepared to speak.
Wang Jie gave the slightest nod, and another guard immediately drove a fist into his stomach.
The young man folded over violently, coughing until he nearly collapsed. "W-Wait..." he stammered. "I know... I know..."
Wang Jie's eyes brightened. Truthfully, he hadn't expected anything, just going with the motion. Just in case.
Without taking his eyes off the brother, he gestured toward two nearby subordinates.
They immediately understood.
Each stepped behind one of the parents and firmly covered their mouth before either could interrupt. The last thing Wang Jie wanted was for them to undo the momentum he'd just built through sheer pain, fear, and confusion.
"Speak." This time, his voice dropped several degrees lower as Qi infused every syllable.
To a mere mortal, the pressure was overwhelming. Even the faintest trace of a Foundation Establishment cultivator's will pressed upon him like a mountain.
"She..." he managed through trembling breaths. "Yu Ji... she... she has a girlfriend."
"Hm?" Wang Jie's eyebrows rose.
"They've... they've been together for over a year. Nobody knows... If she's hiding anywhere... it'll be there."
The father's muffled roar finally broke free of the guard's grip. "You spineless coward! How could you? After everything she's done for you!"
Wang Jie blinked in surprise. He knew?
Yet even that wasn't what surprised him most. His gaze shifted toward the mother.
The transformation was instantaneous.
Gone was the meek woman who had wept at every slap. She now sat perfectly upright, her breathing calm and measured. The tears had stopped entirely. Only her eyes remained alive, fixed upon her son with a disappointment so profound that it bordered on contempt.
When the guard shoved the father back to his knees and silenced him once more, Wang Jie returned his attention to the brother.
"What is her name?" he asked. "Tell me her name, and I'll keep you here for a few hours before letting you go."
The young man hesitated, but the memory of the beating won.
"Meimei..."
"What else?"
"That's... that's all I know. She works at the Happy Sun Senior Home."
Without wasting another second, Wang Jie retrieved his Resonance Disk.
"Send me the address of a woman named Meimei, she works at one of those homes for old people, Happy Sun it's called, something like that."