Shocked to his core, Jin Xueshen locked himself away in “Haina,” quietly rebuilding his worldview.
Everyone assumed he was processing his vengeance, so they left him alone, not prying.
Except Yu Shifei.
After reluctantly spilling what he’d seen, Jin Xueshen buried his face in a pillow, muffling a threat: “…If you dare say ‘I told you so,’ I’ll kill you.”
Yu Shifei, eyeing his posture, figured he’d sooner smother himself with the pillow than anyone else.
So, he swallowed the quip, offering instead: “You told me if those two got together, you’d be with me.”
Jin Xueshen, feebly: “…Bullshit.”
Yu Shifei tweaked his voice sensor: “I’ve got the recording.”
Jin Xueshen burrowed deeper into the pillow, recalling his bold promise, fuming with embarrassment. He silently kicked backward, but missed. Yu Shifei caught his ankle, tucking his long leg back under the blanket.
Tucking the blanket in, Yu Shifei asked earnestly: “So, when will you agree to be with me?”
Jin Xueshen’s face burned, inwardly cursing him a million times for “taking advantage shamelessly.”
But among his million thoughts, “refusal” wasn’t one.
Silent, Jin Xueshen lay face-down, stealthily slipping a hand from under the blanket to clutch Yu Shifei’s hem, fearing he’d leave disappointed without an answer.
Yu Shifei gazed at that slender, beautiful hand.
Understanding its meaning, he said nothing, just took it, holding it tight.
In this harsh world, a hand willing to reach out and hold him was precious, enough.
Days later, Jin Xueshen finally mustered the courage to leave his room.
Bad timing—he stepped out just as Shan Feibai was pushing Ning Zhuo, drifting the wheelchair down the hall.
His freshly rebuilt mental defenses collapsed. He spun around, retreating to his isolation.
Meanwhile, Kenan’s case snowballed, becoming citywide gossip.
Before, investigating the loan-sharking was tough; Ma Yushu and Kenan were an unbreakable unit.
Now, that unit was ash, and the festering secrets beneath Kenan’s glossy facade were ripe for exposure.
Ma Yushu, penniless, was dumped in a standard ward.
But Kenan, flush with cash, was a goldmine.
United Healthcare spared no expense—top equipment, premium drugs—miraculously keeping his half-dead body alive.
They siphoned astronomical treatment fees from his accounts, draining his wealth like a pump, all aboveboard.
Kenan couldn’t resist.
He couldn’t even kill himself.
Silver Hammer’s news iron rule: bury one scandal with a bigger one.
Kenan once mastered this.
Now, he was carrion for the media vultures.
The polished Kenan—a loan shark!
As evidence surfaced, his cultured, courteous, rational mask was torn off, revealing rot.
To Kenan, Silver Hammer’s masses were uneducated fools, easily herded by his nudging, bickering and boosting his beloved traffic.
But loan-sharking was among the public’s most hated sins.
Good people died for it, burdened by morals, genuinely intending to repay bit by bit, clinging to dreams of a better future.
Loan sharks crushed their hopes, families, everything.
Kenan’s face was iconic to a generation of Silver Hammer citizens.
Producer of Justice Show, star reporter for Silver Hammer Daily, he was always a model newsman in public.
This damning exposé was a deathblow.
A master of public opinion suffered its harshest backlash.
While Kenan’s supporters still bickered online, someone took action, sneaking into United Healthcare under the guise of a family visit, slipping into the ICU, and slapping Kenan’s oxygen mask off.
As the intruder was hauled out cursing by security, Kenan was rushed back to surgery.
Trembling, Kenan couldn’t cry—his tear ducts were burned out.
His voice, barely a hiss, rasped: “I don’t want to live… don’t save me… don’t…”
United Healthcare’s response was to drag him, expressionless, to the operating room.
Resuscitation, debridement—all to “save” his life.
Kenan endured public and physical torment, lingering half a month before dying miserably from rejection.
His family didn’t dare claim his body, vanishing.
United Healthcare didn’t handle burials.
Interest Corp, desperate to distance itself, grudgingly sent a low-level staffer at United’s insistence to cremate him hastily, scattering his ashes carelessly.
No sooner was he buried than someone dug up his ashes, scattering them on the street.
No one cared.
Lin Qin, once Kenan’s darling, should’ve faced collateral backlash.
But Kenan’s earlier smears unexpectedly helped.
Someone, chasing Kenan’s clout, admitted Kenan had paid him to frame Lin Qin. Guilt-ridden, he publicly apologized to Officer Lin.
This sparked a wave.
People noticed Lin Qin hadn’t appeared on Kenan’s shows in ages.
The public pieced together a near-truth: Lin Qin must’ve uncovered something, clashing with Kenan.
Kenan, bitter, tried to ruin him.
Lin Qin’s ignored scandals dissolved effortlessly.
Talk of Lin Qin inevitably led to Kenan’s former pet, ex-“White Shield” chief Charlemagne.
He’d been Kenan’s partner-in-crime until Kenan exposed his wife’s corpse scandal, ruining him.
Where was he now?
But Charlemagne was old news, and interest in him fizzled.
Charlemagne himself wished to be forgotten.
Once cozy with the black market, he’d used his position to aid them.
Now fallen, his allies scattered, but a few still tossed him scraps, keeping him from starving on the streets.
They’d done enough.
Charlemagne didn’t dare ask for more, running a small stall selling daily goods to scrape by.
Unable to afford bio-face-swapping like his son, he shaved his head, wore a fisherman’s hat, and grew a scruffy beard to hide his identity.
But his former fame betrayed him; he was recognized repeatedly.
That day, vending in Yunmeng District, he was caught by “White Shield” sweeping street stalls.
The squad captain eyed him, growing certain, hesitating: “Are you… Mr. Charlemagne?”
Charlemagne pushed back greasy hair, shielding his eyes, silent.
The captain, instead of mocking, saluted formally: “Sir, I’m the captain of Yunmeng District’s Task Force Three.”
Charlemagne lifted swollen eyelids, recognizing the face from memory but forgetting the name.
Back then, he’d just been an ordinary cop.
Though Charlemagne barely remembered him, the captain’s respect stirred a long-forgotten spark of surprise.
He spoke: “You… still in Yunmeng District?”
“Yes,” the captain replied crisply. “Always have been.”
The next moment, he lowered his saluting hand, handing Charlemagne a thin e-ticket: “Two thousand fine. All goods confiscated. I’ll leave your cart, not taking it.”
The shift was so abrupt that Charlemagne, who’d been about to force a chuckle, paled, trembling with humiliation: “Two thousand… I can’t earn that in half a month…”
That sum was once pocket change for an afternoon tea.
Now, Charlemagne forced a fawning smile at his former subordinate: “Look, can you let me off this time…”
“Yunmeng District’s street vending fines have always been this standard.” The captain’s tone was even. “Set by you back then.”
Charlemagne: “…”
Hearing this, he knew there was no negotiating.
The sting of financial ruin ignited his fury.
With a mocking sneer, he jabbed: “Know why you’re stuck, never promoted, never leaving Yunmeng? You’re too rigid.”
The captain looked up, slightly surprised: “I’m not promoted because Yunmeng’s my home. I grew up here. I want to make it better.”
Charlemagne scoffed, unconvinced, seeing it as an excuse for incompetence.
He shot back: “Has it gotten better?”
Captain: “Pay the fine honestly, and it’ll get a bit better.”
Charlemagne: “…”
The wooden-headed response nearly drove him mad.
Once the captain left, Charlemagne spat on the ground.
When “White Shield” arrived, the vendors had scattered like startled beasts, leaving the area barren, deserted.
Charlemagne wasn’t familiar with Yunmeng’s streets—despite their layout being unchanged for decades, he’d never truly explored his jurisdiction.
Back then, he knew he wouldn’t be mired in this swamp for long.
Pushing his small cart, head down, he trudged forward.
Suddenly, a foot stepped on the cart’s front, blocking his path.
A former “White Shield” officer, not yet an old man like Motobu Ryo, Charlemagne still had some fight in him.
He looked up, snarling: “You—”
His words choked in his throat.
Ning Zhuo stood before him.
His injuries had mostly healed, but he was still pale, as if either favored by heaven or cursed by it, born with the fragile beauty of a doomed muse.
Yet, before this seemingly delicate figure, Charlemagne’s legs quaked, muscles froze, not daring to even think of fleeing.
His knees buckled, collapsing to the ground, sweat streaming like beads down his face: “You…”
Despair washed over him. Caught now, his odds were grim.
Emboldened by desperation, he blurted his burning question: “…Ning Zhuo, give me clarity. Who did I cross? Who’s behind you?”
Ning Zhuo gazed at him, repeating: “‘Who’s behind me’?”
“Yes, your backer.” Charlemagne craned his neck. “Kenan’s rival at Interest? Or… someone in ‘White Shield’?”
Ning Zhuo understood his meaning.
And found it laughable.
He answered: “No one else. Just me.”
Charlemagne’s brow knotted in confusion.
He couldn’t comprehend.
Before working with “Haina,” he’d had no ties to them.
Tentatively, he asked: “You and I…?”
Ning Zhuo, eerily calm, said: “Hai Chengan sends his regards.”
A thunderbolt struck, rendering Charlemagne speechless.
He recalled the ghostly chill he’d felt the first time he saw Ning Zhuo.
…Someone named Hai, he vaguely remembered.
He’d climbed over their family’s corpses to cozy up to Interest Corp, so the memory lingered faintly.
Hadn’t the Hai family’s only child died in a fire?
…Fire.
Staring blankly upward, he confirmed, disbelieving: “…‘Ning Zhuo’?”
—Ning Zhuo, willing to burn himself to torch all evil.
Ning Zhuo: “Remember now?”
“I’m Hai Ning. Universal peace, seas calm.”
Charlemagne surged with agitation: “Impossible! You must have someone behind you… You’re lying! How could you just be Hai Chengan’s son! Hai Chengan—”
In his memory, that cop was timid, mediocre, often bungling with good intentions, ranking mid-to-low, notable only for his mild temper.
A forgettable nobody, whose death wouldn’t ripple—how could he father this son?
Ning Zhuo understood his frenzy.
With unprecedented calm, he spoke slowly: “I’m not a corporate spy, not a high-priced assassin, not a rich man’s dog.”
“I’m nothing. Just a Yunmeng District cop’s son.”
“A cop’s son sent your son away, sent your wife away, and now it’s your turn.”
Charlemagne snapped awake.
Thunder roared through his mind.
He finally understood it all.
Before he could think further, trembling violently, he slammed his forehead to the ground, shaking with terror, pleading: “I know, I know I sinned gravely. But my son, my wife—they’re gone. I’m like this now, just existing—”
Tears streamed down: “Please, let me live to atone. Every day I’ll repent, burn incense for your parents, your sister. I know I was wrong, please, please…”
Ning Zhuo, unmoved by his sobbing, stood firm.
He’d killed his brother, yet didn’t even know his gender.
“I lived to kill you,” Ning Zhuo’s voice was icy, clear as snow. “Now, I’ll live to atone. You die, okay?”
__
Author’s Note:
[Silver Hammer Daily]
Entertainment News:
Today, former “White Shield” officer Charlemagne was found dead in a dumpster. Did he follow Kenan, dying for love?
Did Kenan, who propelled the handsome Charlemagne to power, have ulterior motives?
Did Kenan’s exposé of Charlemagne’s wife-murder scandal stem from love turned to hate?
Your editor is shocked. But facts are facts.
What do you think about Charlemagne’s “love-suicide”? Share your thoughts in the comments, let’s discuss!
