Zhou Zhaonan’s outstretched hand froze in mid-air. The air suddenly turned to superglue, sticking him in place.
“Why aren’t you talking?” A’Gong asked. His neck stretched forward. This ordinary-looking man had a long, thin neck, and when he craned it, his unmemorable, plain face became eerie and fierce, like a venomous snake locking onto its prey, ready to strike. “Is there a problem?”
The air in the private booth suddenly thinned.
Ji Xun heard a scraping sound, like something sharp sliding across leather.
He glanced around with the corner of his eye and saw a dark figure moving in the booth in front of them. No, not a shadow, but a person, someone who had been in this booth all along! The booth had rows of separated seating with extremely high backs, and these people had been hiding in the other rows!
Suddenly, there was a “bang.”
An empty wine bottle that had been sitting on the opposite bar fell over, spun on the table, hit the base of a computer monitor, and was then snatched up by a tattooed hand wearing brass knuckles.
This was a drug den, filled with the dealer’s people. They were already suspicious. If he didn’t snort it, they would never get out of here, and might even lose their lives. But if he did—
Ji Xun suddenly felt a chill. It was as if a layer of ice was climbing up from the soles of his feet, freezing his body, making his muscles tremble. It froze his brain too, making his usually quick mind sluggish…
What should I do? What should I do now?
Were the undercover police who pretended to be buyers still here? Could they spot the problem, send a signal? Could the anti-drug squad waiting outside rush in to save them in time?
And Zhou Zhaonan…! Zhou Zhaonan’s arms were both injured. Even if the police rushed in and fought with the dealers, could he protect Zhou Zhaonan from getting hurt again in the chaos?
“…Of course, there’s no problem.”
Ji Xun suddenly heard Zhou Zhaonan’s voice. Zhou Zhaonan’s voice was like a sharp sword, breaking through the ice, rescuing him just as he was about to be frozen solid.
Ji Xun jolted and immediately turned his head to see Zhou Zhaonan retracting his hand. The other’s face was as expressionless as ever, and his black eyes, hidden under his bangs, habitually concealed all emotion. Ji Xun had no way of divining the other’s inner thoughts from his face.
Zhou Zhaonan’s body was a silent shell. The shell sealed his soul, a soul that seemed both near and far, unknowable.
His hand had returned in front of him. Without hesitation, Zhou Zhaonan lowered his head, opened his mouth, and was about to lick the powder from his palm.
In that instant, Ji Xun’s hand shot out like lightning and covered Zhou Zhaonan’s mouth. In his palm, Zhou Zhaonan’s lips were hot, warming his still-cold hand.
A’Gong’s eyes narrowed. He raised his arm, and with a rustle, the people in the booths stood up, looking at them with ferocious expressions.
“—How many times have I told you, don’t lick it with your tongue, you have to snort it with your nose. That’s the only way to get the real taste,” Ji Xun said in an annoyed tone. “You can’t even learn this simple thing, what’s wrong with you!”
Zhou Zhaonan, a half-beat slow, picked up the conversation: “I don’t have the tool.”
He was always expressionless, so this slight pause didn’t seem strange to anyone.
Ji Xun said to A’Gong, “Got any paper? Give me a sheet.”
A’Gong laughed. “…Hah, a man of culture.”
He lowered his hand again, and the people around them sat back down. The tense air loosened, returning to its scattered, flowing state.
There was no paper on their table. They asked around, but no one else had any either. The paper was outside the private booth.
A’Gong’s eyes began to shift again, but before he could say anything, Ji Xun casually stuck his hand in his pocket, pulled out his wallet, deliberately picked out a hundred-yuan bill, and flicked it with his finger. “If there’s no paper, we’ll just use this. Only a true connoisseur would understand that this aroma is the same as a heaven stuffed with cash. It’s potent.”
This remark drew a wave of laughter from the booth.
A’Gong gave him a thumbs-up. “Brother, you’ve got style.”
Ji Xun returned the smile, rolled up the hundred-yuan bill himself, and handed it to Zhou Zhaonan.
Zhou Zhaonan reached out to take it.
As their hands touched, Ji Xun felt a sharp, tingling pain in his fingertips, as if he’d been electrocuted, and a numbness, as if he’d touched ice. But his fingers had touched neither electricity nor ice.
He had only touched Zhou Zhaonan’s hand.
He gave Zhou Zhaonan a deep look and released his fingers.
Zhou Zhaonan smoothly took the rolled-up bill, placed one end against the powder in his palm, and inserted the other into his nostril.
Ji Xun saw Zhou Zhaonan’s eyelashes flutter. It seemed as if he was seeing illusions. Zhou Zhaonan’s face became blurry. The other’s eyelashes became butterfly wings, and his hanging hair became spider silk, thousands of strands trapping the butterfly wings in a death grip. He saw the butterfly wings flutter, once, twice… Suddenly, the fragile wings opened and closed, fanning up a hurricane and flames, engulfing and incinerating the spider silk.
Ji Xun saw Zhou Zhaonan close his eyes and sharply inhale the white powder into his nasal cavity.
“Cough… cough cough cough!”
Perhaps he had inhaled too forcefully. Zhou Zhaonan choked, his hand trembled violently, and he bent over, coughing for a good while.
“—” Ji Xun almost blurted out “Are you okay?” He bit his tongue, worried about Zhou Zhaonan’s condition on one hand, while on the other, he felt A’Gong’s expression was a bit strange.
Just then, Zhou Zhaonan abruptly straightened up and looked at A’Gong coldly. “Trying to fool people with flour? Is this how you do business?”
“…Ah,” A’Gong’s strange expression relaxed. He raised his hands and said with a grin, “It wasn’t intentional. Things are tight, the police are cracking down hard. This is a last resort. Alright, alright, now that we’ve tested you, we’re all brothers. You guys wait a bit, I’ll go get the real stuff from the back, I’ll give you a little extra. Just wait a sec.”
He turned and temporarily left the booth. The people around them no longer paid attention to Ji Xun and Zhou Zhaonan.
Zhou Zhaonan handed the rolled-up bill back to Ji Xun. Ji Xun closed his palm around it and stuffed it into his pocket.
A few minutes later, A’Gong returned. Perhaps feeling that the test had been sufficient, he didn’t play any more tricks this time. He casually handed a red, iron tea canister to Ji Xun and Zhou Zhaonan.
“The goods are buried in the tea leaves. You can check it.”
“No need, we trust you, brother,” Ji Xun said.
“Mutual understanding, mutual understanding,” A’Gong patted both their shoulders with a smile that seemed quite genuine.
The two parties exchanged money and goods.
Ji Xun and Zhou Zhaonan left the internet cafe with the tea canister, completely unscathed. A’Gong walked them all the way to the entrance. After walking three or five steps away from the cafe, Ji Xun looked back and saw A’Gong still leaning against the doorway, waving at them, looking for all the world like a hospitable shopkeeper.
He also put on a smile and managed to lift his injured hand to wave back.
Two minutes after they left the street, the anti-drug police who had been lying in ambush rushed into the internet cafe, rounding up all the drug dealers and drugs inside in one fell swoop!
The dealers went to jail, and Ji Xun and Zhou Zhaonan returned to the police station.
Going to the police station three times in one day, even for Ji Xun who already considered it his future workplace, was starting to cause some aesthetic fatigue… And thinking about the potential war of words to come made him feel even more tired.
But it was also possible that the recent events had been too stimulating, pushing him past his threshold, so his body couldn’t get excited anymore.
For a moment, Ji Xun slowed his steps, his eyes slightly glazed over as he stared at the floor tiles in front of him, dazed.
The comfortable state of stupor didn’t last more than a few seconds. Soon, a rush of hurried footsteps came from ahead. Ji Xun looked up and saw Zhong Youdao, who had been so amiable before, now with an ashen face, striding towards them. He raised a hand with bulging veins and pointed at them.
“Who told you to go into a drug den? You all think you’re the Monkey King, with guts big enough to swallow the sky?! Who went in and snorted it? Tell me! Don’t you damn well know that if you had made even the slightest mistake in there, your heads would be separated from your bodies? And even if you didn’t, what if what he gave you wasn’t flour but actual powder? Don’t you damn well know that once you touch drugs, you’re done for, your life is over!”
Ji Xun looked at the man’s hand, feeling as if that massive palm was about to come swinging down… An illusion. Police officers couldn’t hit people. Of course, he also couldn’t add fuel to the fire. As Ji Xun was trying to figure out how to de-escalate the situation and calm the man down, he heard Zhou Zhaonan’s voice.
“Nothing will happen.”
The voice was cold, like ice stones colliding. It would have been cooling in the summer, but now, saying that was no different from pouring gasoline on a torch.
Zhong Youdao was so angry his heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys felt like they were about to explode together. “You’re a 17-year-old kid, both of you are just greenhorns, do you know—”
Zhou Zhaonan gave the man a cool glance, cutting him off. “I know he’s smarter than all of you.”
“Cough cough cough cough cough.” Ji Xun quickly cut off their head-to-head confrontation with a coughing fit. As both their gazes turned to him, he quickly pulled his hand out of his pocket. After taking the rolled-up bill from Zhou Zhaonan’s palm, his hand had remained in his pocket, his palm never opening.
Now, under the gazes of the other two, he took a deep breath and slowly uncurled his stiff fingers.
The red bill was still neatly rolled, in the same state as when Zhou Zhaonan had pretended to snort the flour.
He raised his other hand, pinched the rolled bill, held it upright, and shook it. Under Zhong Youdao’s astonished gaze, a large amount of white powder fluttered down from the rolled bill and landed in Ji Xun’s palm.
Ji Xun then rubbed the bill between two fingers, unrolling it. A small piece of yellow gauze fell out. It was the center part of a bandage, with half of a cute bear head print on the outer side.
“…” Zhong Youdao was too stunned to speak.
“The drug dealer using flour to test us and Zhou Zhaonan cleverly guessing it was a pleasant surprise,” Ji Xun said. “But, even if the dealer had brought out real powder, with this thing blocking the way, Zhou Zhaonan wouldn’t have actually inhaled the drugs into his nasal cavity.”
“Drugs ruin lives, not even a little bit can be touched. Thank you for your teaching, Uncle Police. Uncle Police, as a member of the public who has rendered meritorious service in reporting and capturing criminals, I do not want a cash reward from the police. I only have one small request.” Ji Xun’s face was sincere. “Could I trouble you to ask the drug dealer if this girl recently…”
He took out Xu Shijin’s photo.
“Has gone to them to buy drugs?”
After this combination of deflection and attack, Zhong Youdao was both exasperated and impressed. He pinched the bridge of his nose and led the two kids into the anti-drug squad’s office. On the way, they ran into Officer Qin, whose eyes were flickering. Qin had already heard some unbelievable news from his colleagues and was now waiting in their path, hesitating to speak. After shuffling for a long time, he was still too embarrassed to speak and just wanted to follow them quietly.
But Zhong Youdao was in a very bad mood now. His sharp eyes spotted Officer Qin, and he said with an iron-clad impartiality, “Little Qin, don’t wander into the anti-drug squad’s area for no reason. Stay at your own workstation. Have you forgotten the force’s discipline?”
“…” Officer Qin was so embarrassed that sweat beaded on his forehead.
Heh.
Ji Xun gave Officer Qin a hypocritical smile, leisurely walked past him, and swaggered into the anti-drug squad’s office with Zhong Youdao. Then, Zhong Youdao went to the interrogation room, while Ji Xun and Zhou Zhaonan were temporarily placed in an office to rest.
Later, after a long day, the two finally got the answer from the interrogation room:
The dealers had never seen Xu Shijin, but they described another girl who had gone there to buy drugs.
She wore glasses, was a bit thin, and had a round nose.
It seemed to be Yu Xiaoyu.
