Qiu Yan took a drag of her cigarette and fell silent.
Her silence made Ren Yi extremely nervous. All he could tell was that Gong Yingxian’s attitude toward Qiu Yan was unusual, but he didn’t know how Qiu Yan felt about Gong Yingxian. He had always avoided thinking about this question. What if she also…
Qiu Yan looked at Ren Yi and sighed softly. “I don’t discriminate against anyone because of their sexual orientation, and I’m not trying to discourage you, but I advise you to give up on this idea.”
Ren Yi stared blankly at Qiu Yan.
“Captain Ren, you’re a good person worthy of respect. Yingxian and I both consider you a friend, especially Yingxian. He trusts you very much. If he found out that you had those kinds of feelings for him, he…” Qiu Yan seemed to find it difficult to continue.
Ren Yi nodded without expressing an opinion. He had no intention of declaring some kind of “determination to love” in front of someone he wasn’t particularly familiar with. That would be ridiculously stupid. He didn’t care what Qiu Yan’s motives were or what she thought. His feelings were his own business. Even if Qiu Yan said nothing, he had never intended to change the current relationship between himself and Gong Yingxian.
Qiu Yan knew from his expression that he was brushing her off. She looked into Ren Yi’s eyes and said seriously, “You may think I’m meddling in your business, or that I have some ulterior motive. I don’t. I’m only saying this for your sake. There are some things you don’t know. Yingxian was sexually harassed during adolescence.”
Ren Yi froze. “He… he was…”
“During his teenage years, his sexual characteristics weren’t very pronounced. And because he was Asian, he was frequently harassed by boys at school. There was even a middle-aged man who followed him and took pictures of him for half a year, and even tried to kidnap him.”
Ren Yi’s expression changed drastically. “Did they catch that man?”
“They did. He had a previous conviction for sexually abusing children, and he’s still in prison.” Qiu Yan shook her head. “Fortunately, Yingxian had practiced martial arts since childhood. Quite a few of the boys who harassed him ended up being beaten badly enough to be hospitalized. He transferred schools four times because of these incidents. Things only got better after he went to college. So his tendency to ‘keep to himself’ isn’t just because of what happened when he was a child. His experiences during adolescence also played a part.”
Ren Yi took a deep breath. His hands and feet felt cold, and he had the strange sensation of plummeting downward.
“So you understand now, right? He’s extremely resistant to and disgusted by that group of people.” Qiu Yan spoke awkwardly. “Captain Ren, I don’t mean to offend you. Of course, generalizing about an entire group is wrong, but Yingxian has trauma in this area. You can’t blame him for that either.”
Ren Yi forced himself to smile casually, though the bitterness was impossible to conceal. “Captain Qiu, don’t worry. I only have a little bit of a crush on him. I’m old enough to control my feelings. He…” Ren Yi suddenly felt a dull ache in his chest. “He’ll never know.”
Qiu Yan nodded and gave Ren Yi an apologetic look. “Then I’ll head back to the branch bureau. We’re interrogating Zhou Chuan and Peng Fei. You can come over and listen when you’re finished here.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in a little while.”
After Qiu Yan left, Ren Yi leaned against the railing, somewhat exhausted. He tilted his head back and looked at the sky, letting out a lonely sigh.
He hadn’t expected Gong Yingxian to have gone through all of that during his adolescence. Just listening to it made his scalp prickle. Qiu Yan was right. After experiencing something like that, it was impossible not to develop some prejudice toward the entire group.
If Gong Yingxian found out how he felt, would he think that Ren Yi had approached him with ulterior motives too?
The reason Ren Yi had kept his feelings hidden was precisely because he didn’t want to betray Gong Yingxian’s trust. He didn’t want the relationship between them—even their friendship—to be destroyed. He had long sensed that Gong Yingxian simply regarded him as a friend. Now, Qiu Yan’s words had only further confirmed it.
Ren Yi had been popular all his life, and dating had never been difficult for him. He had therefore never experienced unrequited love. If he truly liked someone, he had never lacked the courage to express his feelings or pursue them.
But with Gong Yingxian, he alone didn’t dare let him know.
It had nothing to do with pride or dignity. He simply cherished the relationship between them. He just didn’t want to see disgust or disappointment toward him in Gong Yingxian’s eyes. He simply wanted Gong Yingxian to have a reliable friend.
Gong Yingxian needed a friend.
So he would bury all his desires deep inside. He would remain Gong Yingxian’s friend. He would do anything he could for Gong Yingxian.
Being able to stay by Gong Yingxian’s side as his friend was enough.
After going downstairs, Ren Yi told Sun Dingyi to handle the aftermath and then return to the station. He himself went straight to Hongwu Branch Bureau.
The old man who had threatened to jump should originally have been taken to the hospital, but when the ambulance arrived, he stubbornly refused to get in because he was afraid of spending money. He was still making a scene in the police station lobby when Ren Yi arrived, and his son had already been handcuffed.
Qiu Yan said coldly, “Mr. Gao, if you continue disrupting official business here, we’ll arrest you too. I mean what I say.”
The old man cursed, “You dare? Release my son!”
“Dad, you’re old. They don’t dare detain you. If they try to detain you, jump!” his son shouted.
Ren Yi glared at him with contempt and couldn’t help cursing. “You’re a stupid, unfilial piece of garbage. Stealing your own cousin’s property isn’t enough—you even make your own father risk his dignity and his life to play this shameless game for you. Today, you’re getting nothing except handcuffs.”
“Who… who are you? What does this have to do with you?”
Ren Yi said, “Captain Qiu, this old man isn’t yet seventy. You can detain him, right?”
Qiu Yan folded her arms across her chest and smiled coldly. “Yes.”
“Then stop wasting time talking to them. Just detain them.”
Qiu Yan gave her subordinates a meaningful glance.
Two police officers immediately stepped forward and handcuffed the old man.
The father and son finally became frightened. They shouted loudly, but in the end, they were still dragged away.
“Captain Ren, you were so cool today.” A female police officer who knew him praised him.
Ren Yi smiled. “Of course. I’ve always been this cool.”
“Captain Ren comes to our bureau every other day. Which policewoman have you fallen for?” another male officer teased. “Tell me secretly, and I won’t compete with you.”
“That’s right. He’s fallen for one of our policewomen. And our policewoman isn’t Doctor Gong?”
Everyone burst into laughter.
Normally, whenever Ren Yi came to the police station, he joked around with them like this, and everyone would simply laugh it off. But hearing those words today, both Ren Yi’s and Qiu Yan’s expressions became slightly awkward.
Ren Yi laughed it off. “If you’ve got the guts, say that to Doctor Gong’s face and see if he sprays alcohol into your eyes.”
They joked around for a few more moments before Qiu Yan led Ren Yi toward the interrogation room.
As luck would have it, two police officers were pushing Zhou Chuan, seated in a wheelchair, down the opposite side of the corridor.
When Zhou Chuan saw Ren Yi, it was impossible to tell whether his eyes held hatred or fear—or perhaps both.
After they passed each other, Ren Yi asked Qiu Yan, “Is he crippled?”
“No. But his muscles atrophied after the burns, so he has difficulty walking.”
Ren Yi snorted coldly, thinking to himself that Zhou Chuan had brought it upon himself.
When they entered the interrogation room, Gong Yingxian and Cai Qiang were discussing something.
The moment Ren Yi saw Gong Yingxian, his heart inexplicably gave a slight tremor. He had only just made up his mind to suppress his feelings, but the instant they met, that affection, that longing, that impulse—all of it transformed into an invisible force pulling and pushing him to move closer, closer still.
No wonder Qiu Yan had seen through him.
How could you possibly hide it when you liked someone?
Cai Qiang teased, “Captain Ren, I didn’t go, but your heroic feat has already spread throughout the police station.”
Ren Yi smiled. “Come on, stop praising me. My head’s going to swell.”
Qiu Yan asked, “How’s it going?”
Gong Yingxian looked displeased. “Zhou Chuan will be transferred from the detention center back to Hongwu Hospital today.”
“For a scumbag like him, we still have to pay for him to stay in a private room, and we have to assign officers to watch him.” Cai Qiang’s tone was also quite unpleasant. “But it can’t be helped. The information he provided really is valuable.”
“He confessed to Chen Pei?”
Gong Yingxian nodded. “Zhou Chuan came into contact with Sachiel four years ago, when he was in college. He said he doesn’t have an arson fetish. He just likes strange and unusual things, so he visited a lot of dark-web sites. But he only looked. He didn’t participate. After graduation, because of his personality, he couldn’t adapt to society. He was unemployed at home not long after starting work. To make a living, he came up with the idea of making money through transactions on the dark web. But he was timid and didn’t dare commit crimes, so he only filmed videos related to fires.”
“So he never came into contact with Sachiel’s core users in China?”
“Quite the opposite. Because he has technical skills, he came into contact with several of them. They occasionally paid him to help with things, but everything was online. He never met a single one of them in person.”
“Who were they?”
“He refuses to say. He only said they were connected to Chen Pei. From the way he talked, he really seems afraid.”
“Then what exactly did he say?” Ren Yi was extremely curious.
Gong Yingxian gently exhaled and glanced at his case file. “Sachiel’s domestic users have an organization. We don’t know whether this organization has anything to do with Sachiel’s founder, but it may be connected to multiple arson cases.”
Ren Yi was startled.
“Zhou Chuan said he inferred the existence of the organization himself. In reality, there may not be any fixed structure—or there may be one that he doesn’t know about. He only came into contact with several members, and they may have been relatively peripheral members. But this organization’s influence is enormous.”
“How did he know?”
“He said those people spent a lot of money on Sachiel. He’s seen them spend hundreds of thousands in a single transaction. And while participating in livestreams, they repeatedly talked about how certain arson cases had been their doing. He wasn’t sure whether they were bragging, but based on what those people said, how much they spent, and some vague, rumor-like posts on the forum, he inferred that members of the organization held relatively high positions in society.”
Cai Qiang said, “Actually, based on our analysis, Zhou Chuan knows some definite information but isn’t willing to tell us. He definitely knows something. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so afraid.”
“Exactly.” Qiu Yan fell into thought. “He may have been threatened.”
“He refused to talk from the beginning and clearly showed that he was afraid.” Gong Yingxian asked Ren Yi, “You remember that time at the hospital, right?”
“I remember. He really was scared.”
“Now that he’s willing to talk, there are two reasons. One, Chen Pei has been arrested, and the outcome is already decided. Two, his injuries are extremely torturous. If he were thrown into the detention center, he’d suffer terribly, so he finally opened his mouth. But he’s still holding something back.” Gong Yingxian said, “However, our immediate priority is solving the Wanyuan Community case. He’s already provided enough evidence.”
Ren Yi was delighted. “Enough to convict Chen Pei?”
A trace of coldness appeared in Gong Yingxian’s eyes. He slowly nodded.