“Routine inspection. Everyone stop, don’t move!”
When the private room door was violently kicked open and a uniformed police officer appeared at the entrance, Ji Xun, who was still draped over Huo Ranyin’s shoulder, froze. He looked at the officer and the body camera in front of him. “What are you inspecting?”
The officer’s face was stern. “What do you think we’re inspecting? Don’t you know what you’re here for? A raid on prostitution. Two men and one woman? All of you, take out your IDs!”
Sisi, who had also been stunned by the sudden police intrusion, panicked for a moment.
But she quickly became defiant. She continued to smoke, her legs crossed, not moving. “Officer, I want to make a report.”
“Still smoking,” the officer looked at her. “Report what?”
“There’s no law saying women can’t smoke, is there?” Sisi said, then looked at Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin.
The officer’s gaze followed hers to Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin.
Meeting these eyes, both men felt a rare chill run down their spines. Ji Xun retracted the arm he had around Huo Ranyin’s shoulder, and Huo Ranyin also let go of Ji Xun’s arm.
The two even subtly shifted to the left and right, creating a little distance, feigning unfamiliarity with each other.
“I’m reporting them for being homosexuals. They’ve been all clingy and lovey-dovey since they came in. The way they were pushing and pulling, playing hard to get, it was truly an eyesore,” Sisi said with disdain. “No wonder I couldn’t get close to either of them, wasting a whole night of my time.”
The rotating lights cast pink and orange hues. The officer’s expression was subtle and hard to read.
“A report is a report, don’t use so many idioms, and don’t expose yourself. You’re a young lady, what are you doing trying to get close to them for no good reason?” he said. “All of you, stand up and line up in the hallway. We’ll find out what’s really going on back at the station.”
Ji Xun slowly stood up from the sofa, covertly communicating with Huo Ranyin. “Captain Huo, it’s time to take out your police ID and conduct a joint law enforcement operation with our brothers from another unit.”
“I didn’t bring it,” Huo Ranyin said.
“Seriously?” Ji Xun asked.
“Seriously. Why would I bring my police ID to meet you?” Huo Ranyin’s expression was calm with a hint of numbness. “It’s time for you to use your past connections, find a former colleague you know, and get us through this by flashing a familiar face.”
“What if we just tell them we’re from a brother unit?” Ji Xun proposed a second idea.
“Use your excellent common sense and judge for yourself. In a hundred raids on vice a year, how many criminals have a ‘stroke of genius’ and try to claim they’re colleagues with the police?” Huo Ranyin retorted.
The two dawdled and muttered, but eventually reached the doorway.
The hallway outside was already lined with people, all with their heads down and chests sunken, like a flock of plucked quails about to go on the chopping block, trembling like leaves in the autumn wind.
They were crowded into a small section of the hallway, almost completely blocking the passage, yet no one made a sound. The atmosphere was so tense it was frightening.
Ji Xun’s voice became even quieter, turning into a whisper.
“Do you know why turtles have shells?”
Huo Ranyin cast a questioning glance.
“Because while hiding one’s head may be shameful, it is useful,” Ji Xun said, raising a hand to cover his face.
“…”
There were already quite a few people in the hallway, but the operation hadn’t stopped. The last red wooden door here remained as steadfast as a general guarding a pass.
The words of the police officer banging on the door had become extremely stern. “Open the door, open the door immediately! If you don’t open it, you’ll be charged with obstructing justice and taken back to the station for detention—Haven’t you gotten the key yet? Forget the key, if you can’t find it, get a fire axe and chop it down!”
Another officer had just turned his head when a red axe was handed to him. The person handing him the axe had one hand covering their eyes and face, both eyes completely hidden under their palm, making one wonder how they managed to accurately deliver the object without seeing.
The officer took the axe and praised, “Thanks, right on time.”
Ji Xun responded humbly, “Every second counts in the fight against vice. It is the public’s duty to help the police.”
The rest of the crowd caught in the raid: “…”
They consciously distanced themselves from Ji Xun. The public did not want to be represented.
The officer was also amused. “Your awareness is quite high. If your awareness is so high, why are you here?”
Because this is all a misunderstanding!
But Ji Xun believed that ten out of ten people caught would shout the same thing, so he saved his breath this time, and slightly widened the gap between his fingers covering his eyes to observe the scene.
There were very few police officers on site, only three in total. One was guarding the people at the back, while two were chopping at the door with an axe. They must have been responding to a tip and came to check the situation. The manager was nowhere to be seen, and on-site were only a few KTV attendants who couldn’t make any decisions, neither fetching the key nor stopping the police from chopping the door.
And behind this door.
There were many people inside, in a panic. Their noisy clamor could still be vaguely heard.
Under normal circumstances, even if lawbreakers were initially agitated upon encountering the police, they should have calmed down by now.
“Group drug use?” Ji Xun continued to communicate with Huo Ranyin in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“I was asking a question, you’re stating a fact,” Ji Xun found it amusing. “Don’t you think there are other possibilities?”
“Drug users are like cockroaches. If you see one, you know there’s a nest hidden nearby,” Huo Ranyin made a casual analogy.
Just as the words left his mouth, with a loud “bang,” the heavy red wooden door was chopped open by the fire axe. The two officers at the door entered first, leaving one officer to stand guard outside.
The hallway of this KTV was not wide. Three burly men standing there could block it completely.
Ji Xun didn’t have time to follow. He only heard the officer who rushed in shout sternly, “There are drugs inside, contact the brigade!”
Through the blurry shoulders in front, Ji Xun saw the inside of the room.
About a dozen men and women were dazed, pushing and shouting crookedly. The window was wide open, and one of the two officers who went in was standing guard in front of it. The curtains were flying out the window.
Someone had climbed down using the curtains.
The person who climbed down was more important than the rest, and might even be carrying a large amount of drugs. The people left behind might not confess.
Next to them was a complex network of alleys, with no cameras for tracking.
A string of thoughts flashed through Ji Xun’s mind. Without any extra consideration, he turned and rushed back to the previous private room!
His movements were extremely fast. At this moment, the third officer guarding the hallway had just contacted the brigade via his walkie-talkie when he saw Ji Xun’s action. He shouted, “Don’t run, stop!”
This shout was not intimidating enough; instead, it alerted the other dazed men and women. The burliest man with a flower-tattooed arm standing at the outermost edge kicked off his disposable slippers and ran barefoot towards the emergency exit!
He only ran two steps before he was violently thrown to the ground. Huo Ranyin caught up from behind and suppressed him on the floor.
Ji Xun, who had run into the private room, caught this out of the corner of his eye and also heard Huo Ranyin’s cold voice, “Where are you running? Your ID is already registered. Where else can you run?…”
The slight commotion in the hallway subsided again. No police followed him in. Ji Xun figured that Huo Ranyin had communicated with the officer guarding the hallway. He held his phone, waved it backward to signal Huo Ranyin to contact him by phone. Without caring if Huo Ranyin saw it or not, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and jumped onto the windowsill.
Looking out from the open windowsill, the situation became clear.
Half of the curtains from the large private room with the red wooden door next door had been torn off and tied into a long rope. A young man with yellow hair was just sliding down the rope to the first floor and running into the alley.
Ji Xun looked at his own location.
Below the windowsill was a convenience store. The store had no awning, but about half a meter from the window, there was an external wall water pipe.
Ji Xun took off his jacket, slipped it over the pipe, and holding the jacket with both hands as a zip line, he swung out like on a swing, sliding down the pipe to the first floor! From jumping onto the window to landing on the ground, the whole process took less than five seconds.
But it was still a little late. The yellow-haired youth had already completely disappeared into the alley!
Ji Xun chased after him but stopped after only two steps. The alley had too many forks. There were three forks in front of him, each one dark and unlit. It was hard to tell which way the yellow-haired youth had run with the naked eye.
He stood there, listening intently.
The alleys were long and deep, with many forks, no cameras, winding like a maze, and—the walls were thin, the walls were short, and sound could leak through.
Walking in one alley, you could often hear sounds from the adjacent one.
He listened patiently and slowly heard the sound of sneakers rubbing against the ground, and the panting of running mixed with the wind.
He closed his eyes. The familiar alleys gradually took shape in his mind, vaguely forming a virtual map that appeared before his eyes. The man running in the alleys was marked with a red dot, and he could clearly see the movement trajectory of this red dot on the map.
A few seconds later, Ji Xun opened his eyes.
He found his direction, ran forward, as nimble and swift as a cheetah that has found its dinner.
The moonlight was the brightest light in the alley. The walls on both sides, which were usually as annoying as a ghost-led wall, provided a great sense of security at this moment. Even the shadows cast by the moonlight seemed like protective armor, following the yellow-haired youth like a shadow.
There were no sounds of pursuit from behind.
It was very likely that no one was chasing him, or that they had already lost him in this place.
The yellow-haired youth’s tense heart relaxed. His blank mind began to notice his surroundings. He heard his own panting breath, his heart pounding like a drum, and his throat, so dry it felt like it was on fire.
Damn it! I’ve never run like this in my life!
He cursed fiercely.
When I get home, I’ll have a good rinse with brandy, take a bath, and wash away this bad luck!
Now…
He looked ahead. He wasn’t familiar with this place either and didn’t know where he had run to, but the main road outside the alley had streetlights. Heading towards the brightest light couldn’t be wrong.
I’ve also turned on my location. Anyway, I’ll meet the person coming to pick me up soon…
A figure emerged from an intersection in the alley.
The first moment the yellow-haired youth saw it, he didn’t even feel any alarm. He was coming from behind, the pursuers were also behind. The person walking towards him from the front—he didn’t know who it was, maybe just a passerby.
It wasn’t until his arm was twisted behind his back by the “passerby” in front, and his face was pressed hard against the rough wall, that the tail end of this thought still lingered in his mind.
“How did you—”
“How did I get in front of you?” Ji Xun finished his sentence. “You run too slow. Practice more after you get out of rehabilitation.”
“I am—”
“I don’t want to know who you are, I don’t want to know who your dad is, and I don’t want to know who your seven aunts, eight grandmas, third brother, sixth uncle, or ninth great-grandfather are. Save your breath. Tell it to the police at the station. There’s plenty to talk about there,” Ji Xun coaxed.
“I… let me go… I… have money,” the yellow-haired youth panted heavily, his voice beginning to tremble. “I’ll give you money…”
“Oh, how much?”
With one hand controlling the suspect, Ji Xun reached for his phone with the other. Now that the person was caught, it was time to send a message to Huo Ranyin.
He glanced down for a moment, so he didn’t see that the yellow-haired youth’s frantically darting eyes suddenly fixed on a spot diagonally in front, and then the panic in his bloodshot eyes faded.
The yellow-haired youth continued to speak. “Give, give…”
“How much will you give?”
Ji Xun’s thumb moved towards the send button of the text message. He was about to send it when he suddenly realized he didn’t have Huo Ranyin’s phone number. He clicked his tongue, switched to Tan Mingjiu’s, but a sharp pain suddenly shot through his waist, and a cold weapon was pressed against his lower back.
A hoarse, middle-aged man’s voice said, “L-Let go of the person.”
Ji Xun’s fingers froze above the screen. In front of him, the yellow-haired youth, still pressed against the wall, desperately rolled his eyes until they were at the corner of his sockets.
More and more bloodshot veins and redness gathered in his eyeballs. A gradually reddening eye stared fixedly at him. The yellow-haired youth’s lips were still trembling, pulling at the mole on his chin, twitching into a grotesque half-smile.
“I’ll give you your mother,” the yellow-haired youth said, word by word.
