When Officer Mo Xi read the above, he had just returned to the police station from the hospital.
The bloodstains on his clothes had already dried. He raised his long, slender, pale fingers and loosened the dark blue tie of his uniform. He really ought to take a shower. At this point, there was practically nowhere on his body worth looking at except his face. But he didn’t seem to be in the mood for that just yet. He put a cigarette between his lips, walked into the corridor, and lit it. Taking a deep drag, he burned halfway through the filter. Pale blue smoke drifted from his mouth, while the orange-red ember flickered in the darkness.
“Captain Mo, congratulations!”
“Congratulations on closing the case, Captain Mo! You can finally get some proper rest.”
Several colleagues from neighboring departments who were working overtime came out. When they saw him, they offered their congratulations one after another.
Mo Xi was an officer who worked in the field. He had been on a mission recently, and whenever he returned to the station, he was always in a hurry to leave again. He could never stay long. A few young officers had just graduated from the police academy and joined the team as interns. Tonight was their first time seeing the legendary Captain Mo, and their eyes immediately widened.
“Ah… Captain Mo…” One of the young women still had the innocent, foolish air of a student. She stared at him blankly. “He’s even more handsome than he looks on the photo wall…”
Her fellow intern hurriedly reminded her, “Keep your voice down.”
It was no wonder the young woman was swooning over him. Team Captain Mo Xi was young, tall, and handsome. More importantly, he was upright, selfless, and strong. No matter how dangerous a mission was, as long as he was there, everyone felt as though they had been given a shot of confidence. Yet no one would dare try to get too close to him.
Mo Xi was a good person, but that didn’t mean he had a good temper.
For example, if you were his partner, you never had to doubt that he would risk his life to save you if you were in danger.
But you also never had to doubt that, after saving you, he would call you an idiot while you were still overwhelmed with gratitude.
“Was he injured?” the pretty young intern whispered to her companion. “His uniform is covered in blood…”
“Not much of it is probably his.” Her companion rolled her eyes. “Have you lost your mind? If he’d lost that much blood, he’d be dead already. Do you think you’d still be able to see him standing here with his two-meter-long legs, smoking?”
“Oh… Right.”
Her companion rolled her eyes even harder. “I don’t know how you managed to survive four years at the police academy.”
“Then whose blood is on him?”
“Probably a suspect’s. Haven’t you heard? This time, Captain Mo and his team finally wiped out that criminal organization that’s been operating for nine years. Those people joined forces with the Golden Triangle drug lord who was arrested in May. With real weapons in their hands, how could they have surrendered so easily? A firefight was inevitable. Isn’t Officer Zhou lying in the hospital right now?”
“Then the blood on Captain Mo’s shirt…”
“One of the suspects used to be Captain Mo’s classmate.”
“He came to his senses at the last minute and stood in front of Captain Mo to protect him?”
“…You’ve read too many Mary Sue novels. At this rate, you’re going to fail your internship. Protect Captain Mo, my ass! He grabbed Captain Mo by force and said he wanted them to die together.” Her companion sighed. “Thank goodness Officer Meng—that is, the captain’s girlfriend—reacted quickly. She fired almost the instant that suspect grabbed the captain. Otherwise, there’d probably be more than just Officer Zhou lying in the hospital right now. The captain would have ended up there, too.”
The young beauty’s eyes sparkled as she listened. “Wow, the captain’s girlfriend is amazing! I hope I can be just like her someday.”
“…You should worry about whether you’ll pass your internship first. Every time you have a spare moment, you’re reading novels. If you were reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, that would be one thing, but instead, all you read are The Pure-Hearted Prince and His Wanton Attendant and My Domineering Master Fell in Love with Me.” Her companion rolled her eyes for the third time that evening. “Pathetic.”
As the officers returned to the station and finished their shifts, they gradually walked through the hall and disappeared into the distance. Mo Xi received a phone call.
“Director Jiang.”
“Have you returned to the station?”
Mo Xi pinched out the cigarette with his fingertips, tossed the butt into the trash can, and replied, “I’m back.”
There was a brief silence on the other end. It seemed as though Director Jiang wanted to say something, though perhaps that was only Mo Xi’s imagination. The director soon broke the short pause.
“Submit your report to Section Chief Li, then go home and get some sleep. Come to my office tomorrow evening at six. I have something to discuss with you—no, two very important things.”
Director Jiang rarely described anything as “important.”
Mo Xi did as instructed. He submitted his preliminary report to Section Chief Li. Since he was too exhausted to drive, he cleaned himself up a little, changed into civilian clothes, and took a taxi home.
It was past four in the morning. There weren’t many people on the streets. He turned his head and watched the blurred lights drift past the car window.
The car moved quickly, accompanied by the muffled music of the radio. It was an old song, one that someone had once hummed beside him many years ago, casually changing the lyrics as they went along. Now, however, the speakers played a gentle female voice, its drowsy melody seeming to lull people between sleep and wakefulness.
The case was closed.
He hadn’t handled everything perfectly. One colleague had been seriously injured, and five others had sustained minor injuries. Fortunately, no one had died in the gunfire.
But Gu Mang was barely hanging on. Mo Xi knew that.
Gu Mang was the vicious criminal the female officer had mentioned—the suspect who had tried to drag Mo Xi down with him. Mo Xi and Gu Mang had been classmates in middle school. They had known each other for half their lives.
Gu Mang had once been a rich second-generation heir. His family was well-off, and he had an unruly temperament. Sometimes he would gather people to fight, but he wasn’t bad at heart. Mo Xi had practically watched him fall, step by step, into the state he was in now.
He had once tried to persuade Gu Mang as a friend. He had also argued with him as a friend.
Back when they were in college, Gu Mang had dropped out. When Mo Xi found him, he was drinking, gambling, and smoking with a group of street thugs. Gu Mang was sprawled across the plump thigh of a delinquent girl, his star-bright eyes half-closed and a faint, teasing smile on his lips as he looked at Mo Xi.
“Bro, you’re here.”
Mo Xi had nearly lost his mind with anger. He slammed the door aside and strode into the private room. Amid everyone’s startled cries, he slapped Gu Mang across the face.
“Are you planning to keep rotting away like this for the rest of your fucking life?”
Gu Mang was drunk. Grinning, he wrapped an arm around Mo Xi’s neck and asked affectionately, “Yeah. Future Officer Mo, wanna rot away with me?”
“Fuck off!”
Gu Mang burst out laughing.
Later, Mo Xi graduated and became a police officer. Gu Mang disappeared, and his phone was disconnected. His family no longer acknowledged him. He was probably wandering the streets and alleys all day, becoming nothing more than a good-for-nothing, idle scumbag.
They lost all contact until one day, while carrying out a drug-busting operation, Mo Xi ran into an ambush and armed resistance from the other side.
Aboard that cargo ship, the dim overhead lights swayed back and forth. The criminals responsible for transporting the shipment sauntered out from the shadows of the cabin.
And there, once again, Mo Xi saw Gu Mang.
Gu Mang’s skin was darker from the sun than it had been before, and his physique was stronger. Only his eyes remained unchanged—bright, black, and seemingly capable of seeing through every trick in the world.
He was bare-chested, his lean, muscular waist wrapped in several layers of bandages. A black leather trench coat hung over his shoulders, and a bloodstained police cap sat crookedly on his slightly long black hair.
It had been taken from the head of a police officer who had died in the ambush.
With an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips, he leaned carelessly against the ship’s railing. He narrowed his eyes toward the front, then smiled.
“Officer Mo. It’s been a long time.”
Mo Xi closed his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. After a long while, he spoke abruptly, without any apparent connection to what had come before.
“During the investigation, the clues pointed to you.”
“Hm?”
“But I told myself the clues were wrong. You weren’t that rotten. Until I saw you with my own eyes, I refused to believe anything.” Mo Xi’s voice trembled slightly. “…And you’ve really let yourself sink this low.”
Standing against the sea breeze, Gu Mang smiled. The black hair falling beside his face fluttered gently. He spread his hands with an almost gentlemanly air.
“What’s so bad about it?”
“…”
“I think it’s pretty good. At least there’s plenty of money.”
As he spoke, Gu Mang snapped his lighter open and lit the cigarette. He took a drag and exhaled through his teeth, tossing a silver lighter back and forth in his hand.
“You know me. I’ve always been particular about how I live. How am I supposed to get by without money?”
Mo Xi instead said, “Take off the police cap on your head.”
“This?” Gu Mang pointed at the top of his head. “One of the comrades who came with you was wearing it. One of my men blew his head off with a single shot. I thought it was a shame to waste the cap, so I put it to good use. What? You want it, too?” He bit down on his cigarette, a wicked smile curling across his face. “You should have one of your own. Why are you fighting me for mine?”
Mo Xi was practically shaking with rage as he shouted, “Take it off!”
Gu Mang’s tone was sweet, but his words were dangerous.
“Officer Mo, you’re a lone wolf trapped in a desperate situation. How come you still have such a bad temper? Do you really think I’ll spare you because of our past?”
The black muzzle of a gun rose.
With the police cap still crooked on his head, Gu Mang grinned.
“Quite a few police officers have already died in the line of duty on this ship today. Mo Xi, do you want to be the last one?”
After a moment of silence, Mo Xi walked toward him.
His combat boots left mottled footprints on the bloodstained deck, where the blood had yet to dry.
“Gu Mang, I once owed you a great deal. You did so much for me back then, and I never managed to repay you. So at least today, I won’t be the one to point a gun at you.”
Gu Mang sneered. “Go ahead and point it at me, then.”
“You asked whether I wanted to be the last one to die in the line of duty.” Mo Xi continued approaching him, step by step. “…If being the last one can get you to turn yourself in, then fine. I’ll do it.”
Gu Mang stopped smiling. His dark eyes fixed on Mo Xi.
“I really will shoot.”
“You’ve already done it plenty of times.” Mo Xi glanced at the bloodstains on the badge of the police cap, then slowly lowered his gaze to Gu Mang’s face. “Fire that last bullet. Then turn back.”
This was the last time Mo Xi tried to save him.
A seagull swept past the mast, and suddenly, a gunshot split the air—
Blood gushed from the wound.
“I told you I’d shoot.” Gu Mang’s expression was cold, while his eyes were as difficult to read as the smoke drifting from a gun barrel. He twisted his lips into a mocking sneer. “Who the hell do you think you are? What makes you think you can tell me to turn back? Look at the pathetic state all of you are in… Mo Xi, what right do you have to negotiate with me?”
He tilted his neck back, looking down at Mo Xi with disdain, and sighed.
“Whether you’re a thief, a bandit, or a police officer, you can’t afford to get too sentimental about the past.”
He slowly bent down and knelt on one knee, resting one elbow casually on it. With the gun in his other hand, he used its scorching muzzle to lift Mo Xi’s face.
“If I were you, and I’d fallen into a desperate situation today, I’d rather bet on taking everyone down with me than be like you, naively and innocently trying to persuade me to turn back.”
The last thing Mo Xi remembered before losing consciousness was a henchman running toward Gu Mang, shouting frantically, “Mr. Gu, the cops are chasing us across the water! Look—”
Before the man could finish speaking, Mo Xi could no longer hold on. His eyes abruptly closed, and he collapsed unconscious onto the bloodstained deck.
That operation confirmed that the local criminal Gu Mang had been working for the city’s largest drug lord. It also cut off the sea route they used most frequently.
But the ambush had come without warning, and the police had suffered devastating losses. Some officers had died, others had been seriously injured, and Mo Xi himself had remained unconscious in a hospital bed for several days before waking up.
Gu Mang had shot him, but he had never stopped to turn back and mend his ways.
As Gu Mang had said long ago—back when he first dropped out of school for reasons he had never explained—
“Bro, my good buddy, the road upward has already been blocked off for me. I’ve got nowhere else to go. All I can do is dig around in the garbage heap.”
“Gu Mang…”
“Shh. Don’t say anything.”
Gu Mang rummaged through his filthy trouser pocket and pulled out six or seven coins. He slung an arm around Mo Xi’s shoulders and found a vending machine, feeding the coins into it.
Two bottles of ice-cold beer rolled out. Smiling, Gu Mang bent down to retrieve them. He pressed one against his own face to cool himself, then held the other against Mo Xi’s face.
With a pop, the can opened, and a hiss of carbonation escaped. Gu Mang’s eyes glittered.
“Let me buy you one more drink. From now on, your big brother Gu Mang is going to be a bad guy.”
Back then, Mo Xi had only shaken his head, thinking Gu Mang was being too frivolous. He spoke as though he were joking around.
He had known this buddy for so many years. Gu Mang had always been too softhearted to even step on an ant. How could such a good kid possibly become a bad person?
And what had happened in the end?
The “good kid’s” men had killed his fellow officers.
And the “good kid” himself had nearly killed him.
“…Fortunately, the bullet missed your heart. If it had gone a little farther to one side, or if you’d arrived a little later, things might have been much worse. You’ll have a scar on your chest, and you’ll need to be careful about strenuous exercise for the next few months. Come back to the hospital for a follow-up every six months…”
Mo Xi had stopped listening to the doctor’s words. He lowered his head and stared at the bandages wrapped around his chest.
The bullet had been removed. Yet it felt as though something else had been dug out along with it, torn from the flesh surrounding his heart, leaving him feeling hollow, in pain, resentful, and full of hatred.
Until today—
Gu Mang had finally been arrested.
Mo Xi felt that the wound in his chest had finally stopped bleeding.
But it still hurt.
This time, Gu Mang had used the same old trick again. But Mo Xi was no longer a rookie police officer fresh out of training. He had prepared thoroughly for the most dangerous circumstances, learned from the lessons of his former captain, and devised the most meticulous plan. He had protected every member of his team, ensuring that none of them were killed.
The only thing he hadn’t anticipated was that Gu Mang had gone this insane.
Driven into a corner, the madman had laughed wildly as he clung to Mo Xi, actually pressing his mouth to Mo Xi’s ear and saying that he wanted them to die together.
At the critical moment, his girlfriend’s shot struck Gu Mang in the left lung. By the time they carried him to the hospital, he had already lost too much blood. Mo Xi’s shirt had been completely soaked through. As Gu Mang was pushed into the operating room on a stretcher, his body convulsed and spasmed unconsciously. His bloodied hands trembled incessantly, and no one knew whether he could still be saved.
There was still too much evidence to collect from him. He couldn’t be allowed to die just like that.
That night, after closing the case and wrapping up the operation, Mo Xi was exhausted, but he couldn’t fall asleep anytime soon.
He remembered that he needed to call his girlfriend and check on her. When he discovered that her phone was switched off, he recalled that Director Jiang had summoned her for questioning about the details of the operation as soon as the net had closed around the criminals.
So Mo Xi sat down at the computer desk in his study, propped his forehead up with one hand, and closed his eyes as he repeatedly massaged his throbbing temples.
“I’ll take you with me when I die…”
Gu Mang’s bloodied face had worn a twisted smile as he slowly slipped from Mo Xi’s arms.
Mo Xi’s eyes flew open.
He really didn’t want to relive that scene again. So he simply picked up his phone—
He wanted to find that novel and read it.
Yes. During the investigation, they had discovered that Gu Mang, one of the key members of this criminal organization, had a baffling hobby:
Writing novels.
He had registered under a pen name on an online fiction website called Jinjiang, using the name Drawing a Bow to Shoot a Flying Bird.
Anyone who came up with a name like that was usually a beginner on the website. Whether it sounded good was one thing; whether it even made sense was another. But the problem was that Jinjiang imposed character limits on both story titles and pen names. Anything too long would be shortened to an ellipsis.
So unless someone deliberately clicked into the author’s profile, Gu Mang’s pen name would appear like this:
“Draw…rd.”
When the pretty young officer from the information department handed this information to Mo Xi, she was quite nervous. After all, someone who called himself Draw…rd and wrote online fiction seemed completely at odds with the image of a sinister underworld kingpin.
The young officer even hesitated before saying, “Captain Mo, this only confirms the IP address. We can’t be certain that the person sitting at the computer writing these books is actually Gu Mang. It could be someone else. We’ll need to conduct further verification…”
Mo Xi, however, said, “No. Anyone who could come up with a name like that is him.”
Mo Xi didn’t like reading novels. In fact, he was old-fashioned in the way he lived. Although he was only in his early thirties, he couldn’t really understand the flashy apps and software young people used these days.
To him, a computer meant the police station’s information system, Word, and Excel. His phone, meanwhile, meant WeChat, the alarm clock, and phone calls.
He used the default ringtone. His WeChat profile picture was his police badge number. The only game he’d ever played was Snake, back in the days of Nokia’s blue screens. When sending messages, he used the system’s default smiling face to express approval.
So before his current girlfriend came along, not a single woman had been able to put up with him for more than three weeks.
When they first saw his face, they were all very willing to date him. But after actually getting to know him, they would all say he was “a good guy,” while complaining that he was “too boring,” “too rigid,” “never smiles,” and “impossible to flirt with.”
So, naturally, he couldn’t handle online fiction apps either.
Actually, when the team first discovered Gu Mang’s hobby, everyone had been on high alert. After all, there were countless ways to use books to transmit coded messages.
“Something like that happened in Sherlock,” one team member had remarked, entirely unnecessarily.
Mo Xi then assigned several patient young women to investigate Gu Mang’s online novels. As the team captain, he naturally downloaded an app himself to browse through them. But he couldn’t figure out how the interface worked, and he couldn’t stand seeing a screen full of titles like Battle Through the XX Gods and Seal the XX Demons. He gave up after just a few minutes.
He couldn’t understand what was supposed to be interesting about them. As far as he was concerned, even the Criminal Law was more exciting.
And those covers! At a glance, every single one featured some pale-faced pretty boy or muscular man with a bitter, brooding expression, a wickedly charming grin, or an aloof, aristocratic air. Behind them were lightning bolts, soaring dragons, hurricanes, or inexplicable clouds of gas. In their hands, they held swords, knives, or unidentified objects. Their eyes glowed purple, red, yellow, green, or blue.
To Mo Xi, every last one of them looked like a wanted criminal. Not a single one looked honest or trustworthy.
Once, a team member had hesitantly asked him, “Captain Mo, have you read the novel Gu Mang wrote?”
“No.”
“Oh…” The team member visibly relaxed, but quickly asked another question. “Then have you browsed that website?”
“More or less.”
“What did you think of it?”
Mo Xi frowned. “Did they base it on the Ministry of Public Security’s online database of wanted criminals?”
“Pfft—!”
The team member later determined that Gu Mang’s novel was harmless. It wasn’t a coded-message novel, so Mo Xi naturally paid even less attention to it. He merely asked the person in charge to put together a plot summary as part of the criminal profile and skimmed through it.
“Captain Mo, Gu Mang’s writing is rather… avant-garde…” The pretty young officer chose her words carefully. “And also… complicated… So I replaced the names of the main and supporting characters with A, B, C, and D, hoping that would make it easier for you to read.”
And so Mo Xi held a stack of papers containing a summary that went something like this:
“A and B were once cultivators at the same cultivation academy. A was blah blah blah, while B was yadda yadda yadda.”
He stared at the pages expressionlessly for a while. He hadn’t really understood much of it. Since he’d never encountered many of these terms before, he had to look them up on his computer.
Still, out of professional caution, Mo Xi muddled his way through the entire summary and came away with a general understanding of the plot.
It seemed to be a romance novel.
But the female lead, B, was cold, aloof, and loved acting superior. She was rather unlikeable. Mo Xi couldn’t understand what was interesting about a love story involving someone like that.
Moreover, based on what he knew about Gu Mang, all the people Gu Mang had dated were either gentle girls or bold, fiery ones. Someone as cold as an ice bucket wasn’t his type.
So, to be cautious, Mo Xi swallowed his pride and asked the pretty young officer in his usual cool, detached tone, “This is a novel about a couple dating?”
For some reason, the young officer’s expression changed slightly. Then she forced an especially unnatural smile.
“Uh… Captain Mo, A and B are both men.”
Mo Xi nodded. So it was about brotherhood after all. That was fine.
For all these reasons, although Captain Mo had gained a general understanding of the plot, he had never actually clicked into Draw…rd’s author profile to read the online novel Gu Mang had written.
Not until today.
The case was finally closed. He had avenged the comrades who had died in the sea operation years ago and himself. He had finally brought those cancerous criminals to justice. And Gu Mang—his former classmate and closest friend—had finally reached the end of the road.
Only now did Mo Xi suddenly realize—
He wanted to sit down and read that book properly.