“Even if they were executed ten thousand times, it wouldn’t be enough to atone for the sins of the Lake Cutters.”
Yu Mi sat on the sofa in his office, staring somewhat blankly out the window at the gray curtain of rain. The cigarette between his fingers had nearly burned to ash, forming a long, precarious cylinder. The voice recorder on the table continued to play a voice slightly blurred by the sound of rain.
“Uh, hold on, is this what you wanted me to hear? You secretly planted a bug on Li Yuan?” Fang Qi, sitting on the other side of the seating area, showed a somewhat awkward expression, raising his hands slightly to signal pause. “Just to be clear, though I’m not sure if something like this is overstepping given your relationship, for me personally, it crosses a line of what I’m comfortable with—even if it’s for solving a case, it’s a bit too much, Team Leader Yu. I mean it.”
Yu Mi sighed and stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Three things I need to correct. First, there is nothing between her and me. Second, your moral bottom line is higher than I imagined, which is a good thing—keep it up, be a good example that distances yourself from those guys. But I didn’t secretly plant a bug on her. I put the bug in the dashcam. Lastly, there was no ‘secretly’ about it. I had her install the bug herself; she was fully aware of it.”
“Well, that’s fine then,” Fang Qi breathed a sigh of relief, his attention drawn back to the voice recorder’s content. He remarked with some feeling, “This is truly the first time I’ve ever heard Li Yuan speak in this kind of tone. She had a conflict with a Lake Cutter before?”
Yu Mi nodded. His fingers hesitated as he pulled out his cigarette pack again, but ultimately didn’t take one out, just tucking the pack back into his jacket. “Aren’t you the one who manages the archives? You’ve never looked into her past?”
“I did, but there’s not much on record,” Fang Qi said. “Honestly, it’s the first time I’ve seen such a simple and clean life history. Graduated from Pingjiang Polytechnic, started helping out in the Group before she even finished school. Single-parent family, raised by her mother. A born Insider—”
“Patient,” Yu Mi corrected.
“My bad, slip of the tongue,” Fang Qi quickly corrected himself. “Her syndrome is congenital. Both parents were ordinary people. Once the syndrome manifested, her mother immediately brought her in to seek help… To be honest, if it weren’t for her personality issues, with that kind of family background and that kind of talent, she could have long ago kicked you down, Team Leader Yu, and become the captain herself.”
“Brother Fang Qi, you truly have a way with words when talking to your superiors,” Zhou Liao said with a grin, poking her head in as she passed the office doorway. “But I support Sister Li kicking the team leader down and taking over! A ruthless gekokujo!”
“You’re out of the hospital?” Yu Mi was slightly taken aback.
Zhou Liao made a funny face and showed off her left leg, which was in a plaster cast. “Just a minor injury. Why would I need to be hospitalized for this? If that old woman hadn’t attacked me by surprise, how could I possibly have suffered such an embarrassing wound?”
Yu Mi’s brows furrowed deeply. “And the penetrating wound on your left side? Has that healed as well?”
He distinctly remembered that on the day Li Wanying broke out of prison, he had personally seen Zhou Liao after she was attacked, lying in a pool of blood. At that time, Zhou Liao didn’t just have an injured left leg—her limbs had been nearly twisted into pretzels, and she had a horrific penetrating wound on her left side. If he hadn’t arrived in time, Zhou Liao wouldn’t have even had a chance to receive treatment.
“What penetrating wound?” Zhou Liao was stunned. She looked somewhat hesitantly at Fang Qi. “Are you two preparing some kind of prank?”
Fang Qi also frowned and looked towards Yu Mi. “Team Leader Yu, the only injury Zhou Liao sustained was indeed a bone fracture in her left leg. Did you remember it wrong?”
Yu Mi shook his head. “In my memory, when Li Wanying broke out of prison, Zhou Liao was already near death.”
Fang Qi paused for a moment, and his expression instantly turned serious. “Team Leader Yu, I think there must be something wrong with your memory. Recount all the important events from the past week, and let’s cross-check them.”
Yu Mi hesitated for a moment but didn’t refuse, simply recounting the events of the past few days from memory. While he spoke, Fang Qi pressed his right hand onto Yu Mi’s wrist. Only after Yu Mi finished his account did Fang Qi slowly release his grip and say in a low voice, “He’s telling the truth.”
Zhou Liao stood somewhat uneasily in the doorway, momentarily unsure whether she should leave or not. With her left leg in a cast, her current posture made her look somewhat like a flamingo standing on one leg. It wasn’t that her physical strength was so poor she’d feel tired from standing for this short time, but that the stance was simply too ugly and unsuitable for a beautiful young woman like her. The oppressive silence in the office truly made this workplace rookie too uneasy to speak up.
Fang Qi glanced at Zhou Liao, who seemed to want to say something but kept stopping herself, and found it somewhat amusing. “What are you standing there for? Perfect timing—go send a message to Tian Xi. After she finishes Opening Lake for Qi Xin, have her come to the office.”
“Is Team Leader Yu under the influence of a Lake Cutter’s method?” Zhou Liao asked, a little curious. She had long heard of the infamous name of the Lake Cutters, but she had never truly seen the real methods of one. As for the official Lake Cutters, every single one was as timid as a shrinking quail. They wouldn’t dare use a Lake Cutter’s method—just mentioning the three words ‘Lake Cutter’ was enough to make them tremble with fear. Someone like Tian Xi, with her laid-back, slacker personality, could indeed be considered brazenly bold compared to her colleagues.
“Hard to say,” Fang Qi shook his head. “In any case, get her over here to take a look. If it really is a Lake Cutter’s method, we need to eliminate the hidden danger as soon as possible.”
Zhou Liao nodded and was just about to leave on her crutches when Yu Mi suddenly called her back.
“Where is Li Wanying now?”
Zhou Liao paused slightly and said, “She dismantled the heating pipe to ambush me, but I subdued her in the end. Right now, she should be in the Detention Center—that was an order you personally gave.”
“An order I gave?” Yu Mi said in a low voice. “What about the secret chamber in Li Wanying’s bedroom? Since she didn’t escape from here, then naturally she wouldn’t have had the chance to destroy evidence. Are the documents from that secret chamber still preserved?”
“What secret chamber?” Zhou Liao laughed. “In your now-altered memory, what’s the story with this secret chamber?”
“What Qi Xin told us—a hidden chamber in Li Wanying’s bedroom. When we found the place, the documentary evidence inside had already been largely destroyed,” Yu Mi said. “We also found blood belonging to Li Wanying in that bedroom, along with a school uniform belonging to her youngest daughter, Qi Ran.”
“A very standard Lake Cutter method,” Fang Qi said. “Entangling some nonsensical yet not entirely jarring details, weaving them into a scene as absurd as a dream. This Lake Cutter who struck must have had a proper master to learn from. To make Team Leader Yu completely unaware of it… it seems we have another formidable and troublesome figure on our hands.”
He walked to the bookshelf and retrieved a pair of matte-black handcuffs. “Team Leader Yu, my apologies. According to the rules, until the removal of the Lake Cutter’s influence is confirmed, personal mobility must be restricted.”
Yu Mi said nothing, merely extending his hands. As the crisp click of the handcuffs sounded, Fang Qi let out a quiet sigh of relief. To tell the truth, though his attitude just now had seemed light and breezy, as if it were nothing serious, as someone who had witnessed the methods of a Lake Cutter, he had truly feared that the Team Leader Yu before him might suddenly lash out and attack him. With his own skills as a desk worker, if he could last even one move against Team Leader Yu, he’d consider himself blessed by high incense.
Thinking of this, a sense of doubt couldn’t help but well up in him again. He asked Yu Mi, “Team Leader Yu, do you have any impressions? Anything out of the ordinary in recent days?”
“None,” Yu Mi said in a low voice. “Everything has seemed quite normal. Are you sure these handcuffs can restrain me?”
“A newly acquired Tang Clan Artifact. It can lock the Qi Channels,” Fang Qi said. “Never mind you, Team Leader Yu. To use the words of the Tang Family members, even the Heavenly King himself couldn’t tear these apart using any method other than brute force. Of course, if you really do possess that kind of strength, I think whether we run or not doesn’t really matter—we can’t outrun a Super Saiyan anyway.”
