A splash of cold water hit Jia in her face. The chill that seeped through her skin finally allowed her jailed breaths to pass through. Drops of water fell back into the washbasin as Jia stared at her reflection in the mirror.

Technically, she had failed the negotiations. There was a point where Qiu Dai seemed more inclined to believe her and give but it turned out he had a thick skin. Beyond that no matter what she said made no difference to him. The entire Bureau would have blown up. The death toll would have been beyond imaginable.

Jia breathed in and exhaled. Patting her face dry, she stepped out of the washroom when Tang Haitao summoned her. She closed the door behind her and stood in attention.

"A crisis is averted. Good work."

It was evident she didn’t take the compliment too well.

"What?"

"I did nothing much."

"Of course, you did."

"I couldn’t stop him in the end."

He shook his head. "You were there, Jia. You had cracked through his defenses."

"It didn’t work."

"Jia," Tang Haitao said with all seriousness. "It was a high-stakes situation and you did phenomenal. It’s difficult for even a seasoned negotiator to be calm in that situation. You handled it pretty well. Turns out all the extra dosage that he needed was a practical threat, and cops cannot do that. Not the way Yang Mingshen can. Our hands are tied in that sense."

She lightly pursed her lips. "Thank you."

"Don’t beat yourself too hard about it, Jia."

"I wonder if I should have negotiated her release."

He shook his head again. "It wouldn’t have mattered to him. He was hell bent on trusting his benefactor. Obviously, he would have sensed a trap. Not like we would have actually released Yan Xiang."

Her eyes narrowed. "The benefactor."

"Huojin is on it. Turns out it was Xie Mulan."

"Sorry...what?"

He sighed. It didn’t take much long to add two and two together.

"She approached Qiu Dai to take revenge on me?"

"An enemy’s enemy is your friend. She dug out all the cases you were in charge of and people who resented you."

"But...how did she even contact him?"

"Through her own game. Survival Grounds."

"That game and company is already shut down."

"Not the dark web. Qiu Dai was a loner and also very good with computers."

"How did we find this out?"

"Huojin was investigating Qiu Dai’s contacts. Then his friend said with conviction that it was definitely Xie Mulan’s gameplan. He is out to bring her in."

Jia closed her eyes.

"Well, that’s how a cop’s life goes. We make more enemies than friends. But glad it got all sorted out. The devil is one scary man."

"How did he get her out of prison?"

"Who knows? You could ask him."

She felt his odd stare and cleared her throat. "What is it?"

Tang Haitao’s mood was quite joyful now that the serious discussion phase had passed.

"I have never seen him so angry before. I thought you were just work colleagues."

She coughed, her gaze darting to the right without her notice. "Of course we are colleagues."

"Only colleagues?"

Her lips parted and closed several times. "Wh-What else would it be...?"

"He broke all kinds of rules and I could tell he was dead serious about inserting that maggot inside her wound. He would have really done it. He would have killed Yan Xiang in the worst way possible. Ugh...I feel nauseous now."

Lost in her thoughts, she asked, tense, "Will there be any action against Mingshen?"

"Why will there be any action against him?"

"I mean he practically kidnapped her and threatened her-"

"Did he now?" He tilted his head. "Where did you see that he was Yang Mingshen?"

Jia stared. "In the video."

"But he was a masked man. It’s hard to recognize through a mask, you know?"

"It was his voice."

"Are we sure? Voice through a mask sounds very different."

"You said we are being threatened by the devil doctor."

"But which devil doctor? We don’t know."

"Yang Mingshen is called the devil doctor."

"And so do many young fledglings in the medical field claim themselves as one. Yang Mingshen is quite popular. I bet it wasn’t even his lab."

Jia, for certain, knew it was his lab. She had spent a considerable amount of time herself once - though unwillingly. She could recognize those walls anywhere. But it was too dark to make out in the video call. For a normal person, it could be any other dark room.

So in the end, what tied back to Yang Mingshen?

"You never once uttered his name."

Her eyes met his and he smiled, merrily sipping on his coffee.

"My star officer still has a long way to go~"

Damn it. I feel so stupid now.

"Naturally, there will be an investigation on the lapses of how Yan Xiang got taken out of prison and who was the perpetrator, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t really go anywhere."

Her brow twitched. "You..."

Tang Haitao blinked innocently.

"Such an awesome boss, don’t you think?" He chuckled. "Go home, Jia. I will take it from here. You had a long day."

Jia closed the door behind her and stepped out. Her own palm smacked herself in the forehead.

"I am seriously such a big dummy."

She had barely let out a breath when that very breath halted half way as her gaze lifted, and she recognized a tall man blocking the doorway at a distance. Her eyes widened slowly as if time had turned still. The background voices faded away and for a strange reason, her own heartbeats reverberated loudly in her ears.

"Mingsh-"

Before that name could even fully escape her lips, an arm had already wrapped around her waist, pressing her against a chest with a firm but comfortable squeeze that wouldn’t allow her to go anywhere. The heartbeats in that chest echoed like uneven drumbeats in her ears as did the slightly ragged breaths.

"Mingshen..."