The mechanism in her mouth was forcefully pried out. Qiao-Qiao's tooth broke and she involuntarily loosened her jaw. The dagger also fell out of her hand. Yu Lanchuan's police baton swiftly tapped her ulnar nerves on both arms. At the same time, the person cupping her mouth from behind pushed her knees and used their height to press her down to the ground.

Qiao-Qiao having good qinggong was just because her body was small and her bones light, giving her a natural advantage. At seventeen or eighteen years of age, her body had yet to fully grow and she couldn't be considered a proper adult. The little bit of martial arts she had learned from her mother when she was young could only scare an ordinary and defenseless person.

She did not have fifteen years of fundamental training in the Seven Secret Arts of Han Jiang, nor did she have the three-cun-and-two-fen Paoding Jieniu that had risen from the ashes.

She didn't even have brute force.

And yet, even when pushed until she was kneeling on one knee, she fought as ferociously as before, shaking howls that didn't sound human coming from her throat, like a deer on the grass plains that had its throat torn away by a fierce beast.

Was "I only have this one son" a reason?

He was a murderer. So many lives of the old and the young, the womenfolk and the children, were lost in his hands. So many people had their families destroyed because of him. The resentful ghosts were still suppressed beneath the lake!

"Have you gone mad? Calm down!"

"Qiao-Qiao, shh, listen to me. What did I tell you before, you're only seventeen years old…"

"Hey, I've a pair of handcuffs here."

Qiao-Qiao was surrounded by noise and clamour. There was someone rebuking her and there was also someone trying to awaken her rational mind in a gentle voice. Multiple limbs pressed her to the ground like they were catching a dangerous wild animal, all the while thinking that they were protecting her.

But I'm not crazy, the girl thought. Her long hair fell forward, seeming to float all around, turning her vision hazy.

If this deeply respected and highly virtuous Old Sect Leader Yang hadn't turned a blind eye to the truth thirty-six years ago for the sake of his so-called "prestige," her uncle and her grandfather wouldn't have died. Her parents would grow up in Yanning under the care of their family. Her childhood wouldn't have those narrow and cramped village streets, or that grudge engraved onto her bones and carved into her heart in that dark little room with no hope of justice.

If he hadn't protected Yang Ping eighteen years ago when he obtained conclusive evidence, the resentment from this old unresolved case would have been resolved long ago. Her father wouldn't have wasted half his life on revenge and wouldn't have died without a complete body in the flour factory.

He said he would return home and live out his life in peace.

They always had the phrase "You're only seventeen years old" hanging on their lips, as though she lived this seventeen years old of hers in good fortune that she did not know how to appreciate, as though her future prospects were bright and boundless.

But she was not a university entrance exam candidate nervously picking her field of study. She did not have wide open roads before her. In the village where she grew up, she no longer had family or friends. In her drifting existence in Yanning, she only had a corner in the upper floor of the pet store to call home. A house cat could live for over ten years; when they were one or two years old, they were still kittens full of spirit and vigour. But for the stray cats that slept in cardboard boxes, one or two years might be the upper limit of their lifespan.

Could the single line "I couldn't bear to do it, I'm sorry" drive her away?

What right did he have!

Yang Qing took a step forward and said softly, "Girl, the soil has nearly buried me to the top of my head. Any day now, I might cross over even if the King of Hell doesn't summon me. But you're still young!"

All Qiao-Qiao's ten fingers dug deep into the grass-covered earth.

Yes, the soil was already reaching the top of his head. But what right did he have to die peacefully of old age in his sleep?

Right then, someone struck the back of her neck. Qiao-Qiao's vision blacked out and she finally stopped moving, her head hanging slack.

Gan Qing finally let out a relieved breath. She took out her bloody fingers and carelessly wiped them on her body, then stumbled half a step to sit on the damp ground in the park. Holding the small mechanism between her fingers, she took a look, then tossed it over to Yu Yan who had run over. "Careful, there are still needles inside."

Yu Yan let out a noise of assent. "Teacher Meng-Meng, your-"

Before he could say the word "hand," he watched in shock as Yu Lanchuan knelt on the ground and took her injured hand. He inspected it all over nervously, saw that the injuries were superficial, and only then took out a tissue from his pocket and carefully cleaned it. At the same time, with a very crossed face, he said sarcastically, "Why is your esteemed sect's skill called Paoding Jieniu? You should change the name to 'The Amazing Take Out 10,000 of Your Enemy by Sacrificing 8,000 of Your Own and Stand Right in the Line of Fire' skill."

Gan Qing let out a soft hiss of pain. The mercilessly nagging Yu Lanchuan immediately gentled his movements, his brows furrowed, his hands so careful he seemed to be doing restoration work on an ancient palace.

Yu Yan rubbed his nose and didn't go forward. He turned to look at the two elderly people by the lake. Yang Qing and Zhang Meizhen were about a meter apart. Both of Yang Qing's hands were gripping his walking stick, his head lowered in silence. Even if one were to be severe and say that he had been protecting a criminal, eighteen years had passed. The statute of limitations had passed long ago.

But human speech was just so limited. Other than "I'm sorry", there was nothing he could say.

"Let's go, I'll call another car." Yu Yan clutched at his own short hair in exasperation. "Everyone, if there's anything, we can talk after going back. Let's not sit here."

The tumultuous weekend was finally over. In the blink of an eye, the even more tumultuous workweek was here.

Yu Lanchuan had an observation that he didn't know whether was correct or not: the rush hour on every Monday morning was when the roads were the most congested, which made him sometimes suspect that there were some workplaces that only had one day of work in a week.

The debts and enmity, sentiment and grudges faintly enshrouding No. 110 Courtyard was scared off at once by the agitated blaring of the vehicle horns. Those who took the bus hurried to catch the bus, those who took the subway hurried to catch the trains. The school gates of the primary school and kindergarten outside the east and west gates of the courtyard were like the pond after a rain, the chorus of frog croaks carrying far. In front of the jianbing stalls that opened regardless of wind and storm were again lines about a kilometer long.

"Give me your phone." Early in the morning, Yu Lanchuan knocked on Gan Qing's door and shared the locations for both their phones.

Gan Qing swallowed a mouthful of soy milk and mumbled a question, "Wha—?"

"I'll see where you are. Just wait for food delivery in the afternoon," Yu Lanchuan said quickly. "Don't touch water. Since you're injured, don't eat at Old Meng's roadside stall that uses illegally recycled oil. I'm leaving!"

Yu Lanchuan's words were still in the air but his feet had already moved ten meters away. His former direct supervisor had retired due to illness. At the moment, his department was being supervised by another department's vice-director while Yu Lanchuan was managing the main tasks. Not only did this not affect the company's day-to-day operations, it also saved on management costs. At the start, Yu Lanchuan hadn't said anything. If there was work, he took it and he also did not reject additional tasks. He was prepared to "seize the throne" at the critical juncture. At the same time, he had contacted a few headhunters and was prepared to change jobs if he failed to take the throne. He planned to pay off his house loan in five or six years, as much as possible gaining financial independence before he had elderly and young ones to take care of. And that was because he had secretly included that unreliable and capricious person next door in his plans.

That woman Gan Qing was evidently not the type to settle down peacefully. If he didn't plan for the long term, they would end up like his parents and encounter short-term mundane problems sooner or later. He didn't want to tie the wild horse up in his house so he could only think of a way to strive for a piece of the grassy plain.

Otherwise, how could he so confidently say those boastful words, "Leave it to me"?

Before Gan Qing could say anything, he had already disappeared from sight.

"...If Boss Meng hears you, he will scratch your eyes out."

She leaned against the doorframe, seeming to be deep in thought as she slowly stuffed the remaining few dumplings into her mouth. Speaking of which, it was strange. In the past, she had "coincidentally" bumped into Yu Lanchuan every morning but had never thought much of it. This was the first time she was getting a sense of how busy an elite city worker was from the view of his back. Yu Lanchuan had just left his house but he was already making phone calls at the elevator lobby. He seemed to be instructing his subordinates to prepare some kind of data, his speech was fast and the words he used concise, saving on punctuation wherever possible. And just like that, with time and work chasing his heels, he was brought downstairs by the elevator, leaving only the lingering sound of the heels of his leather shoes knocking against the ground.

No matter what kind of nonsense and bullshit problems there were, they seemed to only take up a small bit of his internal storage. He always had his own fixed principles. Even if he would also sometimes be exhausted, his head would sometimes ache and his face would sometimes turn cold from how emotionally drained he was, he seemed to always have a type of calm lifeforce. He knew what he should do, what he could do.

No matter what he faced, his eyes never wavered. And that included the future.

Liu Zhongqi came out yawning from next door and gave her a curious look. "Why are you looking into the distance from here?"

"Looking at the mortal world."

Liu Zhongqi had to admit defeat. A big swindler who did not forget to practise being mysterious even outside of work hours would definitely become the most famous witch of her generation in the future.

Gan Qing smiled at him, then turned to go back in.

Zhang Meizhen had spent an entire night smoking in her own room. The moment she opened the door, the smoke rolled out like the special effects for the Southern Heavenly Gates. She stared at the breakfast Gan Qing had left for her on the dining table and spaced out for a while, then saw that her tenant was dressed up neatly as usual, prepared to leave the house to go to work.

What was different was that she had an English-Chinese dictionary wedged under her banged-up arm.

It was as thick as a brick—fit to be a stepping stone to success.

Zhang Meizhen's eyes fell on that dictionary. The moment before Gan Qing stepped out of the door, she suddenly opened her mouth to say, "What happened over thirty years ago should have come to a conclusion long ago."

Gan Qing was stunned for a moment. She turned back to look at Zhang Meizhen.

"Old Yang pretended to be muddle-headed when he was well aware of the truth. As for me, I thought I was above all those material things. Back then, I thought that I had suffered greatly both emotionally and mentally, that the injustice I suffered was greater than anyone else. I didn't want to bear any responsibility at all and decided that I might as well leave everything behind to bring it all to an end. I let the position of North Branch Master fall into the hands of someone like Wang Jiusheng for nothing," Zhang Meizhen said in a low voice. "It's time for us old fools to give the younger generation an explanation. Give us some time. Jianghu people have jianghu ways."