“Ye Feiyang! It’s that guy, Ye Feiyang! He is Xiao Hua. He is the group owner! Right now, he’s at my house giving my son a tutoring lesson!” Chen Changming said excitedly.
Ye Feiyang was his prize student. He never imagined that this boy, who was always so humble, polite, and academically excellent in front of him and everyone else, was actually the master of Eden.
Xiang Ling frowned. She didn’t know if he was telling the truth, but it was her credo to maintain skepticism toward everything. She asked, “Who is Ye Feiyang?”
“He’s my student,” Chen Changming said, his face contorting. He wanted to call the police and have this demon arrested, but then it hit him that he was completely powerless against him. Because he, too, had once been a user of Eden. If Ye Feiyang got caught, he would inevitably go down with him.
But what did the woman in front of him want to do? Did she want to capture Ye Feiyang?
“If he really is Xiao Hua, then naturally I’ll believe you. Now, tell me his address.” Xiang Ling spoke word for word, leaving no room for argument, and added, “If you don’t speak, you’ll suffer along with him.”
“Damn it!” Chen Changming cursed. “I don’t know his address.”
“You don’t know it, but the school does. Use your status as a professor to look up his address right now.”
Xiang Ling had an intuition that if they didn’t settle this matter tonight, things wouldn’t be so easy later on.
Driven by sheer helplessness, Chen Changming had no choice but to obediently pull out his phone and call the records office. “Hello, this is Professor Chen Changming. I have an urgent matter and need the address of Ye Feiyang, a senior in the School of Computer Science. Could you please send it to me right away?” He waited for the person on the other end to finish speaking before offering his thanks.
The moment Xiang Ling heard that, she knew the address was as good as hers.
Before long, Chen Changming received the address on his phone from the records office. Xiang Ling snapped a photo of it, then forced Chen Changming into the passenger seat of her car. She even stripped off his suit jacket, tied his hands together with it, and buckled his seatbelt.
“You’re coming with me. I’m worried you’re lying to me and will run off to destroy evidence the moment my back is turned. I also don’t need you attacking me while I’m driving.”
After offering this brief explanation, Xiang Ling drove off toward Ye Feiyang’s residence, carrying Chen Changming along. Before putting the car in gear, she forwarded the address to Yu Shi so she could rush over the moment she was free.
They arrived at the address on the phone, which turned out to be an old apartment building. Though weathered and dated, it was densely populated and quite bustling.
Xiang Ling pulled out a stun gun and gestured with it in front of Chen Changming, making it clear that she would shock him if he stepped out of line. She then untied his hands and pressed the stun gun against his lower back from behind as the two of them headed up to Ye Feiyang’s unit together.
The elevator was ancient, its mechanical gears grinding so loudly it felt like it might break down at any moment. When they reached the designated apartment on the fourth floor, they heard the clatter of mahjong tiles echoing from inside, accompanied by the chatter of a group of middle-aged women.
Xiang Ling knocked on the door. It was opened by a plump woman with short, curly hair, wearing an oversized Mickey Mouse T-shirt that draped all the way down to her thighs.
With a slim cigarette dangling from her mouth, the woman asked, “Who are you looking for?”
Xiang Ling gave Chen Changming a subtle jab from behind, prompting him to speak. Putting on a genial expression, Chen Changming asked politely, “Excuse me, is Ye Feiyang home? I’m his university professor. I have an urgent matter to discuss with him.”
“Ye Feiyang? Oh… Ye Feiyang. He lives out,” the woman replied, pinching the cigarette between her fingers and blowing smoke to the side.
“Could you tell me his address out there then? It’s an incredibly urgent matter, and it might affect his graduation…” Chen Changming played the part perfectly, looking every bit the honest, worried academic.
Seeing that Chen Changming was dressed respectably and carrying a briefcase, the woman said, “Hold on, let me look for it.”
“A-Lian, the game’s starting!”
“Wait a second. I’m finding my son’s address for his teacher.”
“You actually have a son? How come we never knew all these years? Which man did you have him with?”
“With yours.”
Xiang Ling glanced into the apartment. A mahjong table sat in the living room, with three middle-aged women already seated around it. They looked like residents from the same building, considering they were dressed too casually to step foot outside. Or if they did, they clearly didn’t care about appearances, as one of them even had hair rollers clamped to her head.
Before long, the woman walked back over while tapping away on her phone. She turned the screen to show them. Xiang Ling immediately snapped a photo. After offering a hurried goodbye, they rushed off to the address where Ye Feiyang lived alone.
At 7:30 PM, Yu Shi finished her meeting and took the chance to quickly check her phone. Seeing the address Xiang Ling had sent her, she picked up her pace and left.
Li Yu noticed that his partner had seemed preoccupied lately. She skipped all the after-work gatherings and would sometimes vanish completely during her breaks, making him feel like he was falling short as a partner.
Why wasn’t Yu Shi telling him anything?
Seeing her rushing off once again, he asked, “Want to grab a drink?”
“Can’t, got an emergency. See ya.”
Spotting the car keys left on Yu Shi’s desk, Li Yu snatched them up quickly and called out, “Sis Yu, you forgot your keys!” With that, he tossed them over.
Yu Shi caught them deftly, offered a quick thanks, and added on her way out, “Tell the crew not to do any drinking tonight. We might have an emergency overtime shift.”
Yu Shi had only been driving toward the initial location for a short while when she received another message from Xiang Ling with a new address. Catching on immediately that she needed to head to the second one, she swung the car around and drove in the opposite direction.
The address displayed on her phone led her to a low-rise, elongated apartment building only three stories high. Making sure her gun was ready, she headed up to the third floor. Ye Feiyang’s unit was the second one down the hall. The entire building was dead quiet and looked largely unoccupied. Ye Feiyang’s apartment was one of the few with the lights on.
Gripping her gun tightly, she knocked on the door, prepared to subdue him the moment he opened it, regardless of the consequences. If it turned out to be a misunderstanding afterward, well, there was nothing a proper apology couldn’t fix. And if that wasn’t enough, she could throw in a few deep bows.
Faint footsteps echoed from behind the door. Yu Shi’s sharp eyes caught a brief flicker at the peephole as a shadow crossed the sliver of light bleeding from the bottom of the door.
He was inside, but he wasn’t opening up.
Sensing immediately that something was wrong, she fired a shot directly into the lock. The bullet shattered the mechanism. With a few sharp kicks from her boot, the door flew open.
Inside, several desktop computers were lined up side by side. Ye Feiyang was sitting right in front of them, furiously hammering away at his keyboard.
“Step away from the keyboard and put your hands up!” Yu Shi ordered, aiming her gun squarely at Ye Feiyang and gesturing for him to move away from the computers.
Ye Feiyang cast a subtle glance at the computer before finally raising his hands and slowly standing up. As the two of them maintained their distance, Yu Shi wanted to see what he had been doing on the computer, so she began stepping cautiously toward the desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed what looked like a progress bar running on the screen. Sensing immediate danger, she lunged toward the power strip and kicked out all the plugs. The computers cut out instantly. As long as the hard drives were intact, she wasn’t worried about failing to uncover his data.
At that exact moment, Ye Feiyang seized the opportunity to lean against the wall and flip a switch. Yu Shi heard the whirring of an exhaust fan kick in, followed by fine dust cascading out of the ventilation ducts and scattering into the air. Within moments, every single inch of the room was blanketed in dust.
“Even if you pull the plugs, I can still blow it all up,” Ye Feiyang said confidently, flashing a lighter in his hand.
Yu Shi’s expression turned grave. Her gun was useless now. With the air thick with dust, a single spark, whether from her firing a shot or him flicking that lighter, would trigger a dust explosion. Neither of them would survive. To make matters worse, the dust was already stinging her eyes, and she had inhaled quite a bit of it through her nose.
“You wouldn’t be willing to die with me,” she said, keeping her gun raised even though it was useless.
“How do you know I wouldn’t? Even a cornered dog will leap over a wall, let alone a human.” This time, it was Ye Feiyang wielding the lighter, using the threat to force Yu Shi backward.
The two engaged in a tense standoff across the long desk. Ye Feiyang pinned Yu Shi deeper into the room while he slowly edged his way toward the exit, backing up step by step.
Yu Shi knew exactly what he was plotting. He wanted to get clear of the dust zone and make a run for it, and he might very well flick the lighter and toss it inside before fleeing. She couldn’t let him back away any further.
“If you run now, you’ll spend the rest of your life living as a wanted fugitive,” Yu Shi said, intentionally speaking to keep his attention fixed on her.
“Still beats spending the rest of my life rotting in prison.”
Ye Feiyang took a step back. But the moment he cleared the doorway, someone tackled him to the ground. Holstering her gun, Yu Shi grabbed her handcuffs. She turned off the exhaust fan first before heading out into the hallway, where Xiang Ling was just standing up and brushing the dust off her clothes. On the floor, Ye Feiyang was glaring up at the two of them with a look of bitter resentment.
“Did you seriously not know that the police have a rule? We always operate in pairs.”
Yu Shi gave the sprawled-out Ye Feiyang a nudge with her boot, then bent down to cuff him. When Ye Feiyang could only manage a series of strange, garbled noises from his mouth, she frowned and said, “You went a bit too heavy-handed on him.”
“I just gave him a casual little zap. How was I supposed to know he wouldn’t even be able to speak?” Xiang Ling shrugged, slipping the stun gun back into her coat. She couldn’t resist teasing Yu Shi: “Captain Yu, going white-haired overnight? Is life treating you that rough?”
Yu Shi rolled her eyes and played along. “So rough that I’m about to join a monastery and leave the world behind.”
It took quite a while for the dust inside the apartment to settle. Yu Shi notified her team. The mere fact that he had attempted to trigger an explosion was enough to land him in a jail cell.
Xiang Ling searched the apartment for anything that could confirm Ye Feiyang’s identity. Before long, she found the flash drive containing the virus tucked away in a drawer.
“Coupled with a whole room full of computers, the evidence is rock solid.”
“Just because you wouldn’t use this flash drive at home, you wasted so much of our time,” Xiang Ling said textually, tossing the drive back into the drawer and making sure to plant a swift kick on Ye Feiyang for good measure.
Yu Shi remained outside, holding Ye Feiyang’s laptop. She tapped away on the keyboard to inspect its contents. The desktop was cluttered with teaching PowerPoints and various assignments, but the hard drive was password-protected and wouldn’t open. It looked like getting the password out of him wouldn’t be easy, so she would leave the computer for the tech department to handle later.
“Sis Yu!” Li Yu’s voice echoed from downstairs.
Yu Shi leaned over the railing and glanced down. Li Yu had brought the entire team along, including the tech crew who had been forced into working overtime.
“Captain Yu, is the guy in this car one of yours?” a burly officer asked, pointing at one of the vehicles.
Yu Shi recognized it as Xiang Ling’s car. She turned and called Xiang Ling over, which made Xiang Ling suddenly remember. “Oh, that’s Chen Changming. Have them arrest him, too.”
The burly officer caught the car keys tossed down from the balcony and opened the car door. Inside sat a middle-aged man, his hands tightly bound by a suit jacket. Deciding the knot looked perfectly secure as it was, the officer didn’t bother to untie him and simply transferred him to a police cruiser for transport.
Chen Changming certainly hadn’t seen this coming!
Once Yu Shi’s team had cleared out the suspects and all the computers, Xiang Ling made a quick trip back home. She grabbed the Eden phone and all the criminal evidence she had saved on her flash drive, then handed everything over to the authorities.
Yu Shi gave a brief briefing of the situation to her superiors. Since the number of people involved in the case was massive, Hua Yicheng’s team was assigned to join Yu Shi’s team and assist with the investigation.
As a result, Hua Yicheng’s team, who were originally just scheduled for the night shift, were now in charge of interrogating Ye Feiyang and Chen Changming, while Yu Shi’s team was allowed to head home and rest after having already worked a full day.
The next morning, Yu Shi and Xiang Ling arrived at the police station one after the other. They went to find Hua Yicheng, only to learn that Chen Changming had fully confessed to everything without a fight. On the other hand, Ye Feiyang hadn’t uttered a single word. He had actually fallen asleep and couldn’t be woken up, no matter what they tried. He had finally woken up half an hour ago, was given some food, and used the restroom, but he still remained tight-lipped.
Yu Shi stated that she would handle the interrogation personally. She gathered a massive stack of Xiang Ling’s file materials and brought them into the interrogation room, while pulling some strings to slip Xiang Ling into the adjacent observation room to watch the process.
Ye Feiyang sat in his chair, his hands cuffed to the bar beneath the table. The interrogation room door had opened several times already, but he hadn’t bothered to look up once. This time, however, the person walking through the door was the detective who had captured him, so he finally granted her a direct look.
“You seem to have slept quite comfortably,” Yu Shi said as she sat down across from the criminal, booting up the computer and opening the case files.
“Not as comfortable as my own place,” Ye Feiyang replied, watching her movements and wondering what exactly they had managed to recover from his confiscated computers.
However, everything Yu Shi opened was actually the data collected by Xiang Ling. She turned the screen toward Ye Feiyang so he could get a clear look. Ye Feiyang narrowed his eyes. The images displayed were highly detailed logs of the Eden chatrooms.
After both sides finished reviewing the screen in silence, Yu Shi asked, “Do you feel a bit stupid right now?”
“Pretty stupid, yeah. I never expected I’d trip up over a photo of a corpse.”
Ye Feiyang let out a smirk. He wasn’t referring to the flash drive, of course, but rather how he had handed over the software download QR code just because someone sent him a picture of a dead body. “How did you guys find out about Eden anyway?”
“Through various channels and deductions, but mostly because of this student and this journalist.” Yu Shi brought up two photos, one of Ning Xue and one of Yang San. “To be precise, your classmate and your homeroom teacher.”
Ye Feiyang lowered his head to adjust his glasses, his lips curling into a grin. “Ning Xue committed suicide, and I didn’t kill Ms. Yang either.”
“I know, but you certainly killed Wang Kan, didn’t you?” Yu Shi paused, pulling up the latest file. “In Room 4, you orchestrated for Wang Kan to murder Yang San and clean up all the investigative files in the house. Afterward, because Wang Kan left behind too many clues and pieces of evidence, and because he started blackmailing you, you took matters into your own hands and killed him.”
Ye Feiyang involuntarily began to reminisce. He had clearly already paid Wang Kan the reward money he promised. Yet, the guy kept whining in the app, saying he needed more money to pay off debts, that the police were closing in on him, and that he needed cash to flee the country. Ye Feiyang knew that as long as the man was breathing, he would never let it go. Furthermore, if Wang Kan got caught and blabbed about Eden, he would inevitably be dragged down, too. So, he took the initiative to ask the man out to meet.
He had genuinely prepared a large bag of cash, telling Wang Kan at the time, “Once you leave, don’t come back. I’ll take care of things on this end for you.”
Wang Kan took the bag of money, glanced inside at the cash, and asked, “Take care of things how?”
“I need your help with that. You write a suicide note confessing to your crimes, and I’ll prepare a corpse. I’ll tamper with it a bit so the police won’t be able to tell if the body is really you or not. With a suicide note and a corpse, the police will just assume you’re dead. You can start a new life under a different name after that.” Ye Feiyang stood right where he was as he spoke.
“Damn, that’s genius! Alright, I’ll write it for you.” Clutching the bag of money, Wang Kan took the paper and pen Ye Feiyang had prepared and began writing away.
He wrote with seemingly deep sincerity, yet an irrepressible, thrilled smile was plastered across his face.
Ye Feiyang took the finished suicide note and skimmed the contents. Deciding it was good enough, he asked, “Aren’t you going to smell the money? You’ve probably never held this much cash in your hands your entire life, have you?”
Hearing this, Wang Kan figured he had a point. He pulled out a stack of bills from the bag and ruffled through them right in front of his face like a fan. The scent of those banknotes sure was sweet!
Watching Wang Kan’s behavior, Ye Feiyang secretly thought that this guy was definitely going to die by his own stupidity. He then managed to catch him just before he collapsed to the ground, guiding him into a chair.
He had bought the knockout drug off the dark web. It was colorless and odorless, capable of knocking someone unconscious in an instant. It wouldn’t leave a trace in later toxicology reports.
The drug took effect in ten minutes, which was plenty of time.
Ye Feiyang pulled a rope out from his trunk. He tied one end around Wang Kan’s neck, tossed the rope over a beam on the warehouse ceiling, and hitched the other end to the back of his car. Sitting inside the vehicle, he kept track of the time. The moment the ten minutes were up, just as Wang Kan was waking up, Ye Feiyang slammed on the gas. The car surged forward, hoisting Wang Kan into the air. The man was hanged to death right there before he could even wrap his head around what was happening.
Afterward, Ye Feiyang secured the rope properly to the beam, cleaned up the scene, and took the bag of money with him.
No matter how sweet that money smelled, he was never going to sniff it.
Ye Feiyang bounced his leg indifferently, aware that the detective in front of him had just tried to trick him into a confession. “If you have evidence, bring it out. Don’t try to trap me with your words. I’m not admitting to anything.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll uncover the chat logs sooner or later anyway.”
Yu Shi wasn’t just making wild guesses either. A portion of the debts Wang Kan owed before his death had been paid off from an unknown source of money. Furthermore, among the creditors Hua Yicheng had investigated, someone had indeed overheard Wang Kan boasting that he had a personal ATM and that the money would be paid back very soon.
Despite such testimony, because no clues were found at the scene and there were no suspicious elements overall, Wang Kan’s case had ultimately been closed as a suicide driven by guilt.
“Is that all you’ve got?” Ye Feiyang frowned. He hadn’t expected her to be so casual about it. She didn’t look like she intended to press the interrogation any further.
Yu Shi stretched, her face mirroring his complete indifference. “Since your computers are packed with an abundance of evidence anyway, there’s really no need for me to ask so many questions.”
Suddenly breaking character, Ye Feiyang spoke with a slight quiver in his voice, sounding on the verge of tears. “The outside world doesn’t know you’ve arrested me yet, right? My grades are excellent. My professors are waiting for me to return to class, and my mom is at home waiting for me to come back for dinner. Could you please not make my identity public?
I don’t want to drag down my school, and I don’t want to drag down my mom either. If other people find out her son did something like this, she’ll have to live under the judgmental glares of others for the rest of her life. She won’t be able to survive it.”
Yu Shi caught the key detail hidden in his words. “I know your mother has had a hard life, but what can we do?
Besides, your mother isn’t actually your mother, so she doesn’t need to worry about how she’ll get through the rest of her life. Right now, she’s probably at home playing mahjong with her friends and relatives. She’s just a little short on buy-in money.”
The moment Ye Feiyang heard this, his eyes turned completely cold and sinister.
“Did you really think we wouldn’t look into it? You stayed in an orphanage all the way until your senior year of high school. Once university started, you tracked down Ms. Liu Meilan yourself and told her that as long as she added you to her household registration, you would give her a sum of money every month, all just so you could play the pity card if you ever got caught.” Such deliberate forethought was purely to leave himself an escape route.
Xiang Ling had things she wanted to ask, so she requested entry into the interrogation room. Walking in with her was the lawyer Ye Feiyang had called, who had just arrived as well. The lawyer asked for a chair and sat down right next to Ye Feiyang.
“Another one. Is there something you want to ask?” Ye Feiyang looked at Xiang Ling as she walked through the door, actually feeling a strange surge of excitement in his chest.
Xiang Ling looked at Ye Feiyang’s shoulders, which were twitching slightly with excitement. He had a powerful urge to express himself, but Yu Shi had deliberately refused to question him. He looked like he was just waiting for someone to whom he could spill everything.
She granted his wish. “Why did you create Eden?”
Ye Feiyang finally laughed, a laugh that was thoroughly spine-chilling. It echoed throughout the entire interrogation room until he was laughing so hard he ran out of breath, leaving only a wheezing sound. Finally, he managed to say, “Because it’s fun!”
The lawyer immediately intervened to stop him, saying, “Mr. Ye…” Keeping his mouth shut was critical right now.
“Shh!” Ye Feiyang shot his own lawyer a fierce glare before continuing, “I heard from someone… that being the master of Eden is very entertaining.”
“Entertaining in what way?” Xiang Ling inquired in an utterly detached tone, acting as though she didn’t actually care about the answer.
Ye Feiyang pretended to think it over. He didn’t actually need to think at all. But once his urge to dramatize kicked in, he couldn’t control himself. “Hmm… because inside Eden, he can see people for who they truly are. In a paradise like that, people can strip off the masks of daily life. They don’t need to fake anything. They can indulge and expose their true human nature. Just look at them. Lawyers in fine suits, doctors who save lives, professors who educate, even soldiers who protect the country… inside Eden, they’re nothing but a bunch of authentic pieces of trash.”
After saying this, he burst into a wild fit of laughter again, laughing so hard that his head slammed against the table. The lawyer didn’t dare to stop him, while Yu Shi and Xiang Ling completely left him to his own devices.
“The public seems to have caught wind of something…” Xiang Ling glanced at her phone. It was a text from Jiang Xue.
Ye Feiyang turned to ask the lawyer beside him, “What time is it now?”
The lawyer blinked, checking his watch a moment too late. “It’s eleven o’clock.”
“Perfect timing!” Ye Feiyang lifted his head, casting a glance at Yu Shi. “Do you think I still have a trump card up my sleeve?”
“If you do, now would be the time to show it. We’re going to release a press statement to the journalists outside fairly soon. I’d hate for them to swarm the station and stop me from going home.” Yu Shi checked the time. Her superiors were already in a meeting.
Ye Feiyang cracked his neck and said coldly, “Alright then! As you wish. There are many videos stored on those computers, so the master built a security program. If the password isn’t entered every day by twelve o’clock noon, all of those videos will be leaked to the public!”
Yu Shi nearly exploded on the spot, but Xiang Ling, having anticipated this, quickly pulled her out of the interrogation room. “Stay calm. The lawyer is still in there.”
Li Yu, who had been watching the interrogation from the observation room next door, stormed out in a rage, looking ready to charge in and beat Ye Feiyang to a pulp. Yu Shi and Xiang Ling held him back, shoved him back inside, and told Da Gezi to keep an eye on him.
Yu Shi clutched her head, forcing down the fury raging inside her. She hadn’t expected Ye Feiyang to have a backup plan. They had been working undercover for two months. In most of the videos they had seen, the victims’ faces weren’t visible. But they couldn’t guarantee those weren’t just versions Ye Feiyang had edited. The original footage might well show their faces. Furthermore, many of the victims likely had no idea they had even been targeted. If the videos were leaked across the entire internet, it would inflict severe secondary trauma on them.
Suppressing their frustration, the two women stepped back into the interrogation room.
Xiang Ling asked, “What are your terms?”
Ye Feiyang curled his lips into a smile and said, “Asking you to let me walk out of here seems rather unrealistic, so I’ll compromise a little. The terms remain the same: do not make my personal identification public. The lawyer is right here. Let’s sign a contract.”
“I’m going out. Send Xiao Lang and Jun Zi in,” Yu Shi said before swiftly exiting the room. She had to report this to her superiors immediately.
The suspect had just put a massive bargaining chip on the table!
Xiao Lang and Jun Zi walked in. Ye Feiyang remarked casually, “Tell your higher-ups to make a decision quickly. Time is running out.”
Leaving the interrogation room, Xiang Ling sat alone on a bench outside. She made a quick call to Jiang Xue to check on the situation on the streets. Jiang Xue explained that some journalists likely had backdoor connections. About an hour ago, almost every reporter had caught wind of the story. Rumors were circulating that the police had captured the mastermind behind a criminal chatroom and were currently interrogating him. The internet was absolutely blowing up right now, with countless netizens poking around for information and asking if it was true. A faction of online users had even launched a campaign demanding that if the rumors were true, the police must disclose the personal identities of every single criminal involved. The number of participants in the campaign was skyrocketing by the minute.
“What a headache…” Xiang Ling pulled two pills from her pocket and swallowed them.
The higher-ups evidently found the situation critical as well, making it impossible to reach a swift decision. Xiang Ling watched the time tick away minute by minute. It wasn’t until 11:30 AM that Yu Shi finally rushed back.
Giving Xiang Ling an affirming nod, Yu Shi pushed open the interrogation room door and announced, “Lawyer, come out. Let’s draft the contract.”
Xiang Ling honestly couldn’t comprehend why Ye Feiyang was so fiercely insistent on keeping them from revealing his identity. Given the extraordinary severity of this case, and with both the number of accomplices and victims being unprecedentedly high, once his guilt was set in stone, there was practically zero chance he would ever step foot out of prison again.
So why was he so unyielding about protecting his personal details? Did he actually still have an escape route?
No matter how much she racked her brain, Xiang Ling couldn’t fathom what kind of backdoor Ye Feiyang had left for himself. Only Ye Feiyang knew the answer to that.
Drafting the contract took much longer than expected. It wasn’t until the final ten minutes that Yu Shi and the lawyer finally returned.
Stepping back into the interrogation room, Yu Shi slammed the contract onto the table and said, “Look closely. It clearly states here that as long as you hand over the password, the police will not disclose your personal identification. Our bureau chief has already signed it.”
Ye Feiyang cast a glance at the lawyer. Only after the lawyer gave him an affirming nod did he say, “Alright then!”
Yu Shi unlocked one side of Ye Feiyang’s handcuffs. He picked up the pen and signed his name in large letters on the contract, and the lawyer stamped it with his official seal. The moment that seal was pressed down, the contract became legally binding.
“The password is 5454754…” Ye Feiyang openly gave up the code. From this moment on, this piece of paper was far more important than any password.
Yu Shi notified the tech department, and they quickly confirmed that the password had successfully unlocked the system and deactivated the program.
“Looks like I’m still the one pulling the strings,” Ye Feiyang said with a satisfied smile.
Leaning against the wall, Xiang Ling asked in a lukewarm tone, “Is that all you wanted? Just the thrill of having this kind of power and control?”
“Having other people’s lives in the palm of your hand is far more exhilarating than you can imagine.” Ye Feiyang paused, adding in a mocking tone, “If you ever get the chance in the future, you should try it yourself. Though, I don’t think you ever will.”
“How do you know I don’t have that chance right now?” Xiang Ling looked genuinely puzzled as she turned her phone screen toward him. “Congratulations. You’ve become famous overnight.”
Ye Feiyang stared intently at the screen. It was flooded with comments from netizens. Everyone now knew that the police had indeed captured the mastermind behind a criminal chatroom. They knew exactly who he was because someone had leaked his identity.
The lawyer was so furious he could barely hold back a string of curse words. With an expression that made it clear his side would be filing a lawsuit over this, he barked, “This is a breach of contract!”
Yu Shi burst out laughing and asked without a second thought, “We didn’t breach the contract at all. The terms state: Party A promises that if Party B provides the password to unlock the program, Party A will not disclose Party B’s personal identity to the public. Look closely. Party A represents the police force, and Party B is you, Ye Feiyang.”
“And I never said I was a police officer. This contract of yours doesn’t apply to me.” Xiang Ling spread her hands, then pulled a business card from her coat and slapped it down in front of the lawyer. “Reporter for Wuyang Newspaper. Pleased to meet you.”
Yu Shi noticed the business card Xiang Ling had so aggressively slapped onto the table. It bore the name Liu Que. She couldn’t help but turn her head away and smile.
Both the lawyer and Ye Feiyang were utterly dumbfounded. No one had ever told them that someone outside of the police force was participating in the interrogation. Yu Shi added, “Though there’s been a slight mishap, please keep the contract safe anyway. It is still valid.”
Mie Mie, who had been watching the entire process from the observation room next door, glanced down at her phone. On the screen was a breaking news report that had just been published. She looked at the phone, then back at Xiang Ling in the interrogation room, her eyes darting back and forth in disbelief. Li Yu watched her, looking just as confused.
Finally, she asked in utter shock, “She’s my idol?!”
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