“I’m sure,” Lu Yuzhu confirmed. “I’ve been the domestic ringleader behind this entire case. I must convince the police that Jiang Lanpei had ties to foreign powers, and that those foreign powers had me carry out this plot to avenge her.
“Now, I’ve left behind everything that the police can use as standard procedural evidence. At the end of their investigation, the only evidence they’ll find will prove that this was an international crime. A few months ago, after a ten-year standoff, the boss of that overseas machinery manufacturer finally fell under Executive Duan’s control. Executive Duan will wait to pile all the evidence onto them before having them killed outside the country. That fallen giant should be perfect to take the rap for the Cheng Kang case and the murdered police officers from nineteen years ago on behalf of our organization. At any rate, dead men tell no tales.
“As long as the domestic investigators can use me to show that the case is closed, most of those hounds will be dispatched elsewhere. They won’t waste effort on pursuing the people who remain at large. Some remaining officers might be dissatisfied, but it’ll be difficult for isolated individuals to pull anything off without more support.”
With that, Lu Yuzhu looked down to check the time. Then she said to Jiang Liping, “Liping, you should get on your way. It would be impossible for you to avoid being implicated for what happened to Wang Jiankang and Zhang Yong. If you fall into their hands, it’ll all be over for you. When is Executive Duan sending people to come get you?”
Jiang Liping gazed at Lu Yuzhu’s face as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she didn’t manage it. After a moment of silence, she replied, “His people are already here. I’ll be able to leave at once.”
“Then hurry and get out of here. Zheng Jingfeng is no idiot; once he catches wind of this, he might follow the trail here.”
“Lu-jie…”
“Go.” Lu Yuzhu put her arms around Jiang Liping. The two of them were both undercover criminals from the organization hiding at Huzhou University, and in some senses they were like sisters who had overcome many difficult trials together. “You must be careful—there are police informants in the organization. If our plan hadn’t been leaked in advance, it would have gone even more smoothly this time.”
“I know,” replied Jiang Liping.
“That informant still hasn’t revealed themselves… They’ve harmed us for so long from the shadows. After you catch them, make sure the boss tears them to pieces…” As she gritted her teeth, Lu Yuzhu’s eyes shone with a fanatical brilliance. “This is my only wish before I die. I’ll be watching from hell.”
Jiang Liping closed her eyes, hugging Lu Yuzhu back tightly without a word. Then she turned around and entered the elevator.
The elevator doors closed between the two women, a dividing line between the darkness and the light. Behind the doors, the elevator ascended.
Lu Yuzhu turned around and headed deeper into the library’s basement levels.
There, an assortment of live wires and explosive devices had already been buried. She had also killed the archives’ two staff members. Even if the informant leaked this information to the police, Zheng Jingfeng had still lost to her in the end—he’d failed to locate her before she finished her plan.
They were always so useless—it was the same ten years ago, and they hadn’t changed since then.
They were always too late.
Justice that arrived too late was meaningless. Once, in the past, they had taught her this lesson using her life. Now, in the present, she intended to use this life of hers to teach them a lesson in turn.
Lu Yuzhu walked to the center of the basement and carefully inspected everything again. The organization had given her the most advanced equipment. Although she had no experience with explosives, she understood the necessary procedures. As long as she put everything together according to their instructions and pressed a button on the explosive device, their people would be able to control it remotely and detonate the entire installation in less than five minutes.
Lu Yuzhu walked into the middle of that crisscrossing web of wires. She stood quietly and calmly looked over her surroundings. As soon as the explosives went off, the entire archival library and all its files, whether they were from two decades or more than a century ago, would go up in flames. And with that, the person who had once rescued her from a life of hustling received the “cleanliness” he so desired.
“Duan-ge,” she said softly—speaking aloud the words that she usually only dared to murmur in her heart, an incredibly audacious manner of address. “I’ve come to clean things up for you.”
With a quiet laugh, she pressed the button on the device.
“Duan-laoban.” In a suite in a Huzhou hotel, a technician with a cigar in his mouth was staring at the laptop screen in front of him with a very ugly expression on his face. “Someone’s intercepted the remote-control system for the detonator.”
A man stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows looking down at Huzhou University’s Radio and Television Tower. “It’s been intercepted by the police?” he asked coolly. “I spent so much money hiring you, yet you can’t even beat the police at your own game. You sure accepted the payment with ease.”
“It’s not the police.” The technician wiped at the sweat on his forehead. He was so anxious that his eyeballs were bulging out like a bullfrog’s behind his high-prescription Coke-bottle glasses. “The intrusion port they used isn’t one that we’re familiar with.”
The man’s interest seemed slightly piqued. “And that is?”
“I can’t figure it out right now, but looking at their technique, I feel…I feel that this person is…”
“Is?”
The technician swallowed. “Edward.”
His words were followed by several seconds of silence. Then a woman’s voice floated out from inside the room.
Up until now, that woman hadn’t spoken a word as she lay back in a recliner scrolling through Weibo and looking at the discussion topics about Huzhou University’s broadcasting tower. Even though such content was quickly blocked and deleted, the messages still kept pouring in. Refreshing the page from time to time was enough to hold her attention.
But upon hearing the name “Edward,” the woman’s hand stilled.
“Are you sure?” she asked the technician.
“I-I can’t be sure, but considering that he broke into my system in such a short amount of time, and looking at the method he used, I can’t think of anyone else among the well-known hackers right now, I…”
Duan-laoban smiled faintly. “Well, if it’s him, that makes things easier. Let’s first see if it’s actually him.”
He nodded to the secretary next to him. “Give He Yu a call.”
The dial tone droned several times.
“Duan-laoban, he didn’t pick up.”
The man glanced at the woman out of the corner of his unfathomable eyes. “I really must congratulate you, Executive Lü. You have such a wonderful son.”
The woman rose from the chair, her ample figure wrapped in a luxurious custom-made silk dress. As she walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window, the nighttime city lights illuminated her face—the kindly-looking, ingratiating face of a businesswoman.
Astonishingly, this woman was none other than Lü Zhishu!
Lü Zhishu looked rather embarrassed as she drained the wine in her cup. However, she forced out a few peals of laughter. “Executive Duan, I must also congratulate you,” she said to the man. “If it wasn’t him, it would be very difficult to resolve this issue today, wouldn’t it? If it is him, at least it will be easy to deal with. My son isn’t the type to get involved with something like this of his own accord. There must be someone else with him.”
As she spoke, she looked down at her phone.
The last message sent to her family group chat was from He Yu. Doctor Xie and I have returned to the dorm.
Lü Zhishu handed her phone to the man with a complicated expression in her eyes. “Please try not to hurt him. Think of a way to make him stop as quickly as possible.”
The man glanced at the screen.
“Your dearest son and Xie Qingcheng are together again.”
“They seem to be getting along quite well.” Lü Zhishu was all too eager to distance her family from this development and place the onus entirely on Xie Qingcheng. “I know my son—he doesn’t like Xie Qingcheng’s personality, but psychologically, he’s always treated him as a role model to imitate and surpass. I suppose Xie Qingcheng wanted to look into this today, so He Yu threw himself into the endeavor, hoping to show off in front of his idol.”
“Idol?” The man browsed the conversation history. After a while, he said to Lü Zhishu, “In that case, why don’t we pull up some old videos? It’s about time we destroy the kid’s…what do they call it again? His bias.”
Walking over to the computer, Duan-laoban continued to give orders. “I want everything that’s publicly available on the internet and all our internal files. I’ll tell you which particular videos to look for.”
With a full plan in mind, the man smiled coldly. As long as He Yu was doing this for Xie Qingcheng, everything would work out. Actually, it couldn’t possibly be any easier to make He Yu stop. He just needed to see those glimpses of Xie Qingcheng’s past.
Surely then this son of Lü Zhishu would no longer make such an effort to extend a helping hand to his Doctor Xie.