He twitched the corners of his mouth slightly, as if he wanted to smile, but didn't.
"Officer," his voice was a little hoarse, but unusually steady, as if stating an objective fact, "The Shen family has collapsed. I'm lying here, wearing this."
He gently shook the electronic shackle on his wrist, and the chain made a subtle metallic sound. "The confession you want is nothing more than the final line in this drama that has long ended. Is it meaningful?"
He paused, his gaze seeming to drift towards the glaring white light on the ceiling, and then seeming to penetrate it and see something farther and darker.
"As for who I am..." He withdrew his gaze and looked at the police officer again. The faint curve at the corner of his mouth deepened a little, with an indescribable sarcasm.
"Number 7749, Economic Crime Investigation Division, deep undercover. Mission objective: Monitor the Shen family's capital flows, cooperate with Interpol's 'clearing accounts' operation, and ultimately dismantle the Shen family's criminal network. Mission execution time: ten years and seven months."
He quoted numbers with the precision of a machine.
"Ten years and seven months?" The officer frowned, clearly surprised by the timeline. "Why is there no record of you in the police system? Who was your immediate supervisor? Why didn't you reveal your identity before the Shen family fell? And what about the gunshot wound at the last moment?"
A series of questions came like hail.
The mockery on Chen Yanxiu's face grew even stronger. "No record?" He chuckled, his laughter sounding particularly hollow in the empty ward.
"Because my file wasn't in the 'regular' system from the beginning. My direct supervisor... codenamed 'Nightingale', died in an 'accidental' car accident five years ago. It was exactly the same as Officer Li Zhengyang's."
He uttered Li Zhengyang's name calmly, as if he was pronouncing the name of a stranger.
"As for revealing my identity..." He shook his head slightly, his eyes behind the glasses holding a hint of the coldness of someone who saw through the world. "The Shen family's ship has become a huge fishing ground since the moment the old man was persuaded to rebel."
"Should I reveal my identity? To whom? To those so-called 'insiders' who have already been thoroughly infiltrated by the Night Owls? That would only speed up my demise and make this 'settlement of accounts' that has lasted for thirty years come to nothing."
When the word "Night Owl" was mentioned, Chen Yanxiu's expression finally showed a very subtle change. It was no longer completely empty, but was filled with a deep, cold hatred, like an undercurrent under a thousand-year-old ice.
"As for the gunshot wound..." He raised his hand, his fingertips gently pressing on the bandage on his abdomen through the hospital gown, his movements still elegant, as if he was adjusting his tie, "It was my good brother, Chen Yanbai, who fired the gun himself."
His tone was flat, as if he was stating the weather, "He needs my 'death' to completely confirm the demise of the Shen family and give this scene a shocking enough ending.
"At the same time, it also severed all ties with my past, allowing me, a 'dead' undercover agent, to truly dive deeper into the darkness and catch the real 'big fish'."
He raised his eyes, piercing the police officer and recorder whose expressions changed drastically. "Unfortunately, his shooting skills weren't accurate enough. Or maybe, deep down, he still hesitated for a moment?"
The corners of Chen Yanxiu's mouth curled up in a cold arc, with a cruel look that could see through people's hearts. "Or maybe it was Ye Xiao's men who didn't want me, who knew too much, to die so easily?"
The ward fell into a deathly silence. Only the green line representing the heartbeat on the monitor rose and fell steadily on the screen, making a monotonous "beep...beep..." sound, mocking the solemn and suffocating atmosphere.
The police officer's expression kept changing. The huge amount of information and cold logic contained in Chen Yanxiu's calm words hit his cognition like a heavy hammer.
He needs time to digest it, and more importantly, he needs to seek verification from above.
"What you said needs to be supported by evidence." The police officer's voice was more serious than ever before.
"Evidence?" Chen Yanxiu chuckled, with a kind of detached laziness. "Don't you have that account book? Don't you have Chen Yanbai's testimony? Don't you have Interpol's crackdown?"
"Aren't these all part of the chain of evidence? As for my identity...believe it or not, that's up to you."
He slowly closed his eyes, as if he had exhausted all his strength, and as if he didn't want to watch this hypocritical interrogation any longer.
"I'm...tired..."
(At the same time, on the rooftop of the hospital.)
The night wind was strong, carrying the moisture of the river and the chill of the city's edge, making Chen Yanbai's black windbreaker rustle.
He leaned against the cold concrete guardrail, the cigarette between his fingers flickering in the wind, just like the unquenchable anger and pain surging in his eyes.
Below me are the bright yet cold lights of thousands of homes in Jiangcheng, and in the distance is the outline of an abandoned industrial area swallowed by darkness in the western suburbs.
The raging flames at the explosion site, the screams of his brothers who were instantly swallowed up, Li Zhou's desperate roar beside the ruins, Gu Yuxiao's lifeless face as he was carried on the stretcher... and the brother in the ward who was wearing shackles and calmly accepting interrogation... all the images collided wildly in his mind.
Ah Cheng appeared silently a few steps behind him, like a silent shadow, bringing the news from downstairs: "Mr. Shen, Mr. Li asked me to tell you that the technical team has preliminary results. The micro-receiver fragments are branded with 'VK-7', and the tobacco is produced in Eastern Europe around Vilnius."
"Also, at the western suburbs coordinates, the abandoned 'Red Star' chemical plant, surveillance around the 'Dark River' perimeter has revealed signs of recent activity, but it's unusually quiet."
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
