Chen Ling’s body bore at least seven or eight knife wounds, and there was even a bullet hole in his shoulder… His face was smeared with blood and exhaustion, beads of sweat the size of peas rolling down his cheeks and dripping onto the barren earth.
Wen Shilin was stunned. He stared blankly at the unnaturally twisted left hand, his eyes filled with disbelief.
"Your hand…"
"That metal part couldn’t pry open the chains, but it could break my hand." Chen Ling smiled weakly. "But it’s fine… I’ll go see Dr. Chu. For him, these injuries are nothing."
Wen Shilin’s gaze at Chen Ling was full of complexity. He had also held that metal part earlier, but it had never occurred to him to smash his own hand to escape—or perhaps he simply hadn’t dared to think of it… Yet Chen Ling, upon getting the part, had done exactly that.
If this was what it took to survive, Wen Shilin would have done the same without hesitation. But in the moment, his mind had gone blank. It was Chen Ling’s sheer boldness or rather, his ice-cold, razor-sharp intellect—that had dragged both of them back from the brink of death.
"That’s how we escaped just now?" Wen Shilin couldn’t help but ask.
"We were trapped in a storage room. After getting out the door, people started coming when they heard the noise, so I charged through the least guarded path… and finally escaped through the back door."
As Chen Ling spoke, an invisible python slowly slithered out from between his brows, coiling around Wen Shilin, who remained completely unaware. It seemed to be sucking away something, bit by bit.
"I was just saving myself too."
Chen Ling glanced down at his wounds and said hoarsely, "Mr. Wen, let’s part ways here… I need to go see Dr. Chu."
Wen Shilin wanted to say he’d accompany him, but remembering that all of this had happened because of him, he feared dragging Chen Ling into more trouble. After a moment of silence, he spoke with a complicated expression, "Alright… I won’t go with you. You saved my life. If there’s ever a chance, I’ll repay you."
Chen Ling waved it off indifferently and staggered away. The brown overcoat, stained crimson with blood, gradually disappeared into the distance.
Just as Wen Shilin was about to leave in the opposite direction, his peripheral vision caught sight of something on the ground where Chen Ling had stood—a crumpled file folder lying in a pool of blood. It must have been on Chen Ling’s person before getting dislodged during the chaos.
Wen Shilin didn’t suspect for a second why the folder had conveniently landed there, nor did he doubt anything Chen Ling had just said.
Because [Heart Python] was coiled above his head, relentlessly draining away his "suspicions."
Wen Shilin bent down to pick up the folder, intending to return it to Chen Ling, but Chen Ling had already vanished without a trace… Given how severely injured he was, he probably wouldn’t miss a mere job application file.
He could only lift the folder from the blood, carefully wiping it clean, planning to return it the next time he saw Chen Ling.
Just then, a tear at the bottom of the folder split open, and a few sheets of paper slipped out.
Wen Shilin looked down and saw that most were Chen Ling’s personal information and resume. But when he picked up the last sheet, his brow furrowed involuntarily.
"This is…"
It was a photograph. In it was a boy of fifteen or sixteen, gentle and delicate in appearance. On the back of the photo was a line of deeply etched words:
—Who stole your heart?
Confusion flashed in Wen Shilin’s eyes. At the same time, the python coiled above his head opened its maw wide, and the doubts it had swallowed earlier came flooding back into his mind.
Wen Shilin stared blankly at the photo in his hand, his bewilderment reaching unprecedented heights… Even when chasing other news stories, he had never felt like this.
Who was this boy? Why was this in Lin Yan’s job application file? What did "stole your heart" mean? Was this related to his hospital interview?
Wen Shilin nearly sprinted after Chen Ling on the spot, but he restrained himself in the end… Even so, his heart itched unbearably.
Shaking his head, he staggered off in the opposite direction.
Only after Wen Shilin had gone far away did a blood-soaked figure step leisurely back onto the gravel, returning to the original spot. A biting cold wind brushed past his hair as the corners of his lips curled upward.
With a casual wave of his hand, Chen Ling’s twisted, broken wrist snapped back into place. The bloodstains on his body visibly faded, restoring his pristine appearance…
He stood there calmly, completely unharmed, as if the broken bones and wounds from earlier had been nothing but an illusion.
The mournful wind howled across the desolate wilderness, its wails echoing through the empty warehouse.
Chen Ling pushed open the warehouse door once more, hands in his pockets as he strolled inside like an elegant actor stepping onto the stage. The roar of machinery drowned out the creak of the door and his footsteps, as if providing musical accompaniment.
"Let me go! Let me go!"
"I really am one of Chief Tan Xin’s people! Everything I said is true! Why won’t you listen to me?!"
"You can’t kill me… I completed the mission for the organization! You can’t just abandon me like this!"
"…"
A'Cheng, his head still covered by the black cloth bag, was chained to a machine in the center of the warehouse. The deafening roar of the machinery beside him nearly ruptured his eardrums. Even his desperate shouts were completely swallowed by the noise.
Chen Ling stopped in front of him, a hint of mockery flashing in his eyes. Suddenly, he seized A'Cheng’s throat with one hand and slammed him violently against the machine.
A'Cheng’s screams were cut off instantly.
A face peeled naturally from Chen Ling’s features, transforming him into a completely unfamiliar middle-aged man. A cold, raspy voice spoke, "…Have you thought it through?"
"Thought what through?!" A'Cheng stammered. "I—I told you the truth! If you don’t believe me, ask Chief Tan Xin—"
"I already sent someone to ask. They never received anything from you."
A'Cheng froze. "No… that’s impossible…"
At the same time, faces kept peeling from Chen Ling’s visage like layers of mysterious, deceitful masks. Entirely different voices spoke one after another, "Boss, he’s lying. He’s not one of Tan Xin’s people at all."
"Yeah… He’s just struggling to stay alive. Maybe even that location was fabricated."
"Boss, we’ve already killed that reporter and the other guy. No loose ends. What do we do with this one?"
"Do you even need to ask? What’s the point of keeping him?"
"…"
Drowned out by the machinery’s roar, A'Cheng couldn’t pinpoint where these voices were coming from. Trembling under the murderous tone of the "crowd," his body shook with terror.