CH 5

Chapter 5: Shen Lu, Who Wasn’t Breathing, Sat Motionless and Dormant, With a Stiff Expression That Felt Strange and Cold.

“Captain——? Captain Yan? Have you returned from your morning run?”

The sound of knocking on the door of the room next door woke Yan Chenli up. When he opened his eyes, it was just dawn, and bright rays of light filled the room. Yan Chenli only just noticed the handmade wooden frames by the side of the window, which had a few green plants in them. The bright emerald green made the small room seem even warmer than it was during the night.

The flip-clock on the headboard flipped to 7:00AM with a clatter. Yan Chenli crawled out from the brown bedsheets, tidied up the chest buttons of his shirt, and opened the door, then leaned on the doorframe with a groggy expression, “I’m here.”

“Oh.” Qin Ke turned to look at him, then looked back at the number of the door in front of him, confirming again that he hadn’t gotten the wrong door, “That’s… Shen Lu’s room?”

“I was going to help tidy up things so we can return them to his family when we contact them.” Yan Chenli lifted a hand to his collar, which had been turned upside down while he was asleep, “What’s the matter?”

“…that’s right. Oh.” Qin Ke sighed, then walked over to him, “Mr. Chuan wants you to go over.”

Yan Chenli turned his head to look at him, “Is it urgent?”

“No. Mr. Chuan said you could go when you had time.” Qin Ke had already walked next to Yan Chenli, and when he saw how the inside of the room was arranged from outside the door, he let out a slightly surprised gasp, “He even had a desk? And he kept flowers? Wow… I would’ve never been able to tell he was such a homebody.” After that, Qin Ke couldn’t help but sigh sadly, “It’s such a shame.”

Yan Chenli slightly lowered his eyes, “Yeah.”

“If only he could have stayed.” Qin Ke spoke again.

Yan Chenli nodded lightly: “I think so, too.”

There was still some time left before the usual morning meeting, so Yan Chenli sent Qin Ke away and returned to his own room to freshen up and change clothes. A few minutes later, he carried a large box and went to the first-floor office with the ‘Administration’ sign on the door.

A man wearing a black suit sat inside the bright and spacious office. He was a middle-aged man with an imposing look and a grave expression. He was surrounded by screens with densely-packed data and tables, and was just clattering away on the keyboard as he typed. His gaze was very oppressive, making people involuntarily want to run when he stared at them, but Yan Chenli had long since gotten used to it, so he put the large box in his hands down on the low table in front of the sofa:

“Jin Sen, help me send this back to the Technical Department of the Yinjiang Criminal Investigation Bureau to make a ballistic curve analysis. And this one.” He pulled out a small plastic bag from the inner pocket of his suit, which contained a lump of metal which had been completely deformed by impact. There was a handwritten serial number and label on the plastic bag, indicating that it was a bullet.

Jin Sen put down his work and got up to open the box, there was a pile of almost ten sniper rifles sealed in bags inside it. He looked at Yan Chenli, “Is this the kind of thing you need to come here in person for?”

Yan Chenli paused a little, and spoke in a low voice, “I’m worried about handing it over to someone in yesterday’s operation team.”

Jin Sen’s originally stern gaze became even gloomier, “You don’t suspect it was someone in the operation team?”

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1 The Executioner’s name is specifically a musical notation rest, 休止符 xiūzhǐfú, which sounds a lot nicer than any of the examples given. Top.

TN: The next chapter is a slight timeskip + change in protagonist POV (who we haven’t met yet). Don’t worry, Lulu and Captain Yan will be back, but they’ll be taking a little bit of a back seat for now.

TN2: SZQ just dropped a bunch of gorgeous art on their weibo for lots of the characters (and even some we haven’t met in the raws, gasp). There are also individual posts for most of them, so I’ll be linking to those when the character is introduced in the story in case anyone wants to avoid spoilers. Relevant character images below:

Here’s Shen Lu + Yan Chenli, then and now.

Shen Lu looking very handsome

And Smiling Yan Chenli