FY - 56

Guangnan Nunnery.

Zhou Yan leaned against the wall. One step forward was air, and if she took it, she would fall. But she just stood there, one arm crossed, the other holding a cigarette. Her red dress was especially conspicuous in a place that only had three colors: gray, white, and black.

Si Wen walked in and looked at her from behind.

She looked very much like a poet, but when you think she looks like a worldly person who has written a few poems, it means that in her eyes, you are an outsider.

Hearing the movement, Zhou Yan turned around, and her “poet” demeanor vanished.

She walked to the counter, casually picked up a Colt M1911, a large-caliber, semi-automatic pistol. She put on an eight-inch barrel, attached a silencer, aimed the gun at a wall fifty meters away, and fired all the bullets. When she looked at the results, all of them had hit the bullseye that Si Wen had set for her.

She put the gun away and raised an eyebrow at Si Wen. “Not bad?”

Si Wen took the gun from her. “You always use this one. It would be an embarrassment if you weren’t good with it.”

Zhou Yan’s upper lip curled up in disdain. “Then give me a cannon.”

Si Wen didn’t. He continued to talk about the pistol she usually used. “This gun has been discontinued. I put it together myself and modified some of its features. It was originally for my men, but I didn’t expect you to be quite suitable for it.”

Zhou Yan didn’t agree. “It’s not that I’m suitable for this one; it’s that you always give me this one.”

Si Wen reached out his hand to her.

Zhou Yan gave him her hand. “What?”

Si Wen grabbed her hand and pulled hard. She was caught off guard and fell into his arms, where he held her tight. “Why do women play with guns? It’s enough to be able to protect yourself.”

Zhou Yan looked up from his embrace, into his eyes. “Why do women choose dangerous men? They should find an ordinary man and be a good wife and mother.”

Si Wen’s thin lips curved slightly. “Am I dangerous?”

Zhou Yan raised her hand, touched his eyebrows, his eyes, the bridge of his nose, and finally his lips. Then, she moved down his chest and grabbed his crotch. “What do you think?”

Si Wen pinched her chin. “You’re seducing me.”

Zhou Yan smiled brightly. “Am I successful?”

Si Wen picked her up, carried her sideways, brushed the guns on the counter to the floor, placed her on it, and pulled down her panties. His slender fingers moved down her raised legs, stopping at her “swamp.” He entered her, letting her latch onto him.

Zhou Yan gently closed her eyes. “Ah.”

Si Wen grabbed her clitoris, and she was already hard. He asked, fully aware of the answer, “Do you get in the mood this quickly with every man?”

Zhou Yan opened her eyes and slapped his arm. “Do I have other men? Do you give me the chance? How can you even have the audacity to say that? As a woman who sells herself, serving only one man is a great humiliation to my professional career.”

Si Wen leaned down and shut her up with a kiss. She loved to provoke him with those words.

Zhou Yan swirled his tongue, finding it delicious.

Si Wen let her go, enticing her. “Want to try two other things?”

Zhou Yan knew he was talking about his cock. “Is there something to trade?”

Si Wen leaned in close to her ear, his lips half-covering her earlobe. “Isn’t making you feel good enough?”

The tingling sensation in Zhou Yan’s ear spread throughout her body in an instant. “No, it’s not. Si Wen, with you, it’s never enough.”

Si Wen chuckled, a subtle sound.

He felt the same way.

He wished they could be together twenty-four hours a day. He felt like the day wasn’t complete if they didn’t get intimate.

His addiction to Zhou Yan was far greater than a drug addiction. Opioids, though ingested, are addictive. For a person with no strong willpower, they can’t quit. But for a person like him, who had survived a death sentence, he could. But he just couldn’t quit Zhou Yan.

It wasn’t enough. With Zhou Yan, he could never get enough.

Kissing her neck, Si Wen greedily held her body tight, and his deep, magnetic voice rumbled, “Let me enter you.”

Zhou Yan wrapped her legs around his waist. “You never have to ask. It’s always open for you.”

Si Wen unzipped his pants, took her hand, and guided it down.

She understood. She took it out, held it, smeared it with her wetness, and guided it into her soul.

At that moment, she tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and let out a moan of pleasure.

Si Wen was lethal.

Once he was inside, time seemed to stretch. Si Wen showcased a man’s physique to a degree that would make other men furious.

Zhou Yan rested her head on his shoulder, breathing heavily. “After being with you, any other man I try would just be an unpleasant memory.”

Si Wen kissed her lips.

Zhou Yan hugged his waist, her ear against his chest. “I want to dance.”

Si Wen asked her, “Do you know how?”

Zhou Yan shook her head. “No, but you can teach me.”

Si Wen: “How can you be so sure that I do?”

Zhou Yan was very confident. “Is there anything you don’t know how to do?”

Si Wen was persuaded by her twisted logic. He picked up her shoes, about to put them on her, but she pulled away. “I want to be barefoot.”

Si Wen: “There are rocks on the floor.”

Zhou Yan climbed down from the counter and stepped on Si Wen’s shoes, looking up at him proudly.

Si Wen allowed it. He pulled her hands to his lower back, held them tight. “Hold on tight.”

Zhou Yan pulled her hands back, first taking out a wireless earphone from her pocket, putting it on herself and him. Then she hugged him again.

The music flowed into their ears through the earphones. They swayed slowly to the rhythm, their bodies completely into the moment. Their movements were slow and beautiful.

Zhou Yan leaned against Si Wen’s chest. She knew that the thing Si Wen had been planning was coming. She just wanted to have a moment, however brief, that belonged only to them, where they could lean on each other like this. She wasn’t a prostitute, and he didn’t have a mysterious past.

There was no upcoming battle, no worry, no rush.

There was only them, and at most, the sun, moon, stars, and the mountains.

She didn’t know what had happened in the past, but she would never, ever, tell him to forgive.

And she wouldn’t ask. She simply couldn’t handle hearing about the suffering Si Wen had gone through and still be as calm as him in her planning. If she didn’t just put a bullet in those bastards’ heads, it wouldn’t be something Zhou Yan would do.

________________________________________

In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed.

Si Wen spent an entire day at Yaogu instructing his secretary on some matters. This included finalizing all the arrangements for when Zhou Yan failed to notarize the gift contract, and all the documents that needed to be signed.

When he was done, he went to see Hu Lai.

Hu Lai had been held by him for half a month and had lost a lot of weight. He was almost just skin and bones.

When he saw Si Wen, he lunged at him, his face a ferocious mask, but he was stopped by the shackles on his feet before he could reach him.

Si Wen just stood in front of him, holding a glass of red wine, swirling it gently and rhythmically. He didn’t move an inch, no matter how many times Hu Lai lunged at him. He showed no fear and didn’t lose any of his dignity.

Hu Lai had been howling for days, and his voice was hoarse. “You son of a bitch! I curse you to die a horrible death!”

Si Wen watched the red wine swirl on the side of the glass, unaffected by his words. “I’ve been taking good care of your wife and children. You don’t thank me, but you repay my kindness with hurtful words. Aren’t you afraid of angering me?”

Hu Lai flinched and stopped.

After a while, he collapsed on the ground, covering his face and crying. After a while, he said in despair, “I’ll do it.”

Si Wen waved his hand to have his men release him. “Isn’t this a happy ending for everyone?”

Hu Lai’s hands and feet were freed, but his hatred for Si Wen was not. He squinted at him. “I’ll only help you lure him out. As soon as Ban Ma comes out, you have to let my family go.”

Si Wen never kept his promises to people who were on the opposite side of him. “Of course.”

Hu Lai was at Si Wen’s mercy. Si Wen had a chokehold on him.

________________________________________

Zhao Youjin did go to Feng Zhongliang and told him everything Si Wen had done and was about to do.

Feng Zhongliang stood up abruptly after hearing her, his hand resting heavily on the armrest of his chair. He had, in the end, become a criminal.

To make her story more credible, Zhao Youjin had written a script beforehand and memorized it for a long time. “I have always been at his mercy. Whenever I had a choice, he would accurately crush it. I had nowhere to go. I could only do what he told me, or I would die. I’ve always believed that even if I’m guilty, I should be judged by the law, not by him, an ordinary citizen with the same rights as me.”

The last sentence was a harsh blow. Feng Zhongliang, who had served the public for many years, hated hearing it the most. But he also knew that the Zhao Youjin in front of him was no longer the same person as before. He should only listen to half of what she said.

He asked her, “Did he tell you the time and place of the meeting with the drug lord?”

Zhao Youjin shook her head. “Not yet, but he will. He needs a woman to help him navigate various relationships. And I’m the only one with the experience and who knows the whole story. So he will tell me.”

According to the script she had rehearsed beforehand, Zhao Youjin did a pretty good job. She thought that she had fooled Feng Zhongliang, at least for now.

Si Wen said that if this didn’t go well, he would die, which meant that as long as someone disrupted his plan, his time would be up.

Feng Zhongliang was the perfect person for the job.

As soon as Si Wen was dead, she would immediately pin everything on Si Wen, which might even count as atonement.

In addition, she was Feng Zhongliang’s lawfully wedded wife. Even if they didn’t have feelings for each other, they still had that piece of paper. He probably wouldn’t stand by and watch her die.

Perhaps it was a flash of insight before death, but Zhao Youjin showed a wisdom in front of Feng Zhongliang that was beyond her own intellect.

Feng Zhongliang said to her, “Be careful. Don’t be too eager. Don’t let him know that you’ve told me this.”

Zhao Youjin nodded. “I know.”

Feng Zhongliang sat down again.

Could he have been wrong? Did Si Wen not want him to die? Did he just want him to step down so he could deal drugs without any constraints?

Could it be that Si Wen’s interest in Zhao Youjin was truly just for her ability to deal with men in transactions?

If that was the case, then he had to go to the Ministry of Public Security and report the situation to the minister.

Now all he had to do was wait for Si Wen to confirm the time and place. Once the information was confirmed to be true, he would do whatever it took to temporarily save Si Wen’s life with the minister’s help. As long as Si Wen still had a shred of goodness in him, he would save him. If he had lost his original purpose, then he would die with him.

It would be his atonement for abandoning him due to his self-interest in the past.

________________________________________

With Si Wen’s help, Hu Lai successfully connected with one of Ban Ma’s six top lieutenants. He exaggerated his influence in Japan and Korea tenfold. In addition to his sea transport license, Si Wen also forged a land-based one for him.

It was a week later that he received a message from the other party asking to meet.

Ban Ma was very cautious. He sent all six of his lieutenants, but he himself didn’t show up, remotely controlling the transaction process.

He was cautious, but Si Wen wasn’t inflexible.

Qizhou’s neighbor was Jianglin City in Shengxi Province, a port city with a prosperous maritime trade. Hundreds of ships left the port every day.

It normally took four hours to travel from Qizhou to Jianglin and back, but it was less than an hour to get there by cutting through the Guangnan Nunnery mountain forest. However, very few people dared to take this route because it was too dangerous.

Guangnan Nunnery was a major project and one of the best in Qizhou, yet it was only a small corner of this mountain forest.

In the past, there was a forest management station here, but the rangers kept dying mysteriously, and the real culprits could never be found. So the government closed the station. In reality, there were no mysterious deaths; it was just a criminal gang hiding in the forest causing trouble.

Later, when Si Wen took over the forest, people killing people and ghosts fighting ghosts, no ordinary person who accidentally entered ever failed to get out.

To be more convincing, Si Wen had Hu Lai set the transaction point there. He told Ban Ma’s people that in addition to the old route for goods entering the country directly from the U.S.-Mexico border, they could also use the cover of the forest to set up a drug production site. They would provide the raw materials and equipment, and Hu Lai would produce the drugs. After production, the drugs would be shipped directly from the forest to Jianglin Port and then sent to Japan, Korea, and other places.

Drug lords and kings all over the world had long coveted Hu Lai’s unique transport route. The main reason was the huge market in Japan and Korea. The demand and purchasing power for drugs there far exceeded the few regions where he currently had a good sales volume. But they could never track his whereabouts, so they could only fantasize.

This time, Hu Lai came to them, and Ban Ma couldn’t have been happier. He immediately sent people over just to confirm it was him. He didn’t think this could be a trap.

Perhaps he thought that even if it was a trap, with his power in the drug empire and the fact that he rarely showed his face and no one could find his weakness, there was nothing to fear.

But he never expected that the person who was going to strike at him was someone close to him, Si Wen, who knew him all too well.

Si Wen didn’t let Hu Lai close the deal. He kept leading Ban Ma’s six lieutenants around in circles. The six were all ruthless people. They wanted to kill him several times but didn’t, which showed how important Hu Lai was to Ban Ma.

It also showed how smart Si Wen was to go to all this trouble to get a hold of Hu Lai.

After half a month of delays, Ban Ma couldn’t sit still anymore.

He came to Qizhou himself.

________________________________________

The night before Ban Ma arrived, Si Wen sent a message to Zhao Youjin, asking her to come and participate in the negotiation and giving her enough power.

Zhao Youjin reported this to Feng Zhongliang, and Feng Zhongliang didn’t doubt it at all. If Si Wen had only asked Zhao Youjin to come and observe, he would have been suspicious. In this kind of transaction, the fewer outsiders present, the better. Why would he bring a useless person along?

But if Si Wen, at a time like this, still indicated that he needed her for a certain skill, then it meant the matter was real.

The situation was urgent. Feng Zhongliang bypassed the anti-narcotics bureau and reported directly to the Ministry of Public Security.

The minister trusted him and immediately set up a special task force, appointing the new anti-narcotics bureau director as the chief commander. The new director would stay at the command center, while all the armed forces of Qizhou and Jianglin would be mobilized and put on standby outside the forest.

________________________________________

When the First Criminal Investigation Team received the order, Zheng Zhi was completely baffled. “We’re going, too? International drug dealers, this must be a military operation, right? With our level of training, aren’t we just going to our deaths?”

Wei Li’an finished getting his team in order and walked over. “The notice says that we and a few other teams are responsible for logistics, things like weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies.”

Zheng Zhi understood. “As soon as you say logistics, I feel a little useless.”

Wei Li’an shouted his name. “Zheng Zhi!”

Zheng Zhi instinctively stood at attention. “Here!”

Wei Li’an said to him, and also to the entire team, “The transaction point is in a mountain forest in Qizhou and even the entire country that is easy to defend but hard to attack. Logistics are crucial! If anyone dares to slack off, I’ll make sure they pay!”

“Yes!” they said in unison.

________________________________________

After Si Wen notified Zhao Youjin, he put his phone aside.

“Taking a bath?” Zhou Yan’s voice came from behind him.

Si Wen turned around. She was walking toward him.

Zhou Yan started to take off his clothes. “I’ve run the water for you to soak in.”

Si Wen held her waist, pulled her close to him, and leaned in to kiss her neck. The kisses turned into licks. “You’re coming with me.”

Zhou Yan felt ticklish and tried to pull away. “I’ve already washed.”

Si Wen: “Wash again.”

Zhou Yan laughed. “What’s in it for me?”

Si Wen: “Anything you want.”

Zhou Yan couldn’t think of anything for now. “I’ll just owe you for now.”

Si Wen took that as her agreeing to bathe with him. He picked her up, carried her sideways, and walked toward the bathroom.

The bathtub was big enough for two, and they often bathed together. But today, Zhou Yan had only filled it with water for one person. When they both got in, the water overflowed and spilled all over the room.

The room was filled with steam.

Zhou Yan lay on top of Si Wen, her lower abdomen resting on his palm.

The bathroom was a room that jutted out from the rest of the building. In each building, the bathrooms were in different positions, and from the outside, they looked staggered. This was for the acrylic roof. Lying in the bathtub, you could see the starry sky.

Zhou Yan looked at the starry sky, counted the stars, and said, “You’ll take me with you, right?”

Si Wen kissed her wet hair. “Yes.”

Zhou Yan’s heart was at ease. “That’s good. You won’t leave me behind.”

Si Wen pulled her hand down and held it tight. “I’ll take you with me even when I die. How could I leave you behind?”

Zhou Yan rolled off him to face him. “Do you prefer a boy or a girl?”

Si Wen frowned. “What?”

Zhou Yan wrapped her arms around his neck. “Let me have a child for you.”

Si Wen: “Why do you suddenly want a child?”

Zhou Yan buried her face in the crook of his neck, her voice muffled, but Si Wen still heard her. She said, “I don’t want a child. I just thought that way, you’d have something to care about. You’d stay alive.”

Si Wen sat up, lifted her onto his lap, and cupped her face. He wanted to swallow her sorrow, but she had too much of it. In the end, he just gently stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You’re enough for me to care about.”

Two lines of clear tears slid down Zhou Yan’s face, not so obvious on her wet skin. “After tomorrow, we’ll only talk about love and romance.”

Si Wen kissed the part of her face where the tears had fallen. “Okay.”

In a chaotic world, there is much love and romance, but within that love and romance, there is also slaughter and calamity. If they can escape it, it’s their destiny. If not, Si Wen will take up his sword, gather his courage, and fight a battle to the end.