A single day felt as long as a year staying in the detention cell. Last night, a drunk driver was shut up next door. He had fallen asleep after talking wildly for a while, and was released on bail by his boss early in the morning.

Chen Shi leaned on the wall all day with his eyes closed. In the evening, Lin Qiupu came again, holding what was obviously a DNA test report.

Chen Shi sighed, wondering how he was going to get through this.

“Why did you impersonate Chen Shi?” Lin Qiupu asked coldly.

“I was Chen Shi to begin with.” Chen Shi had no choice but to insist on his story.

The two looked at each other quietly for a minute. Lin Qiupu seemed to give up and handed over the DNA report through the gap between the railings. “I was just lying to you. It seems that you are really Chen Shi. Your parents' DNA and yours are a ninety-nine percent match. Captain Peng personally tested it.”

Chen Shi felt like the big rock on his chest had been lifted. He tried hard to restrain his joy and didn't reach out for the file. He said, “You will have to pay me for my mental and emotional losses.”

“Oh please. It’s in line with the regulations to detain you for 24 hours or less.” Lin Qiupu took out his cell phone. “The policeman who took the sample said that your father was ill and might not make it past the year. Do you need to give him a call?”

Chen Shi knew that Lin Qiupu didn’t believe him yet, so he took the cell phone, dialed a random number, and said in fluent dialect, “Dad, I'm Chen Shi...”

When Chen Shi finished the phone call, Lin Qiupu's suspicion had slowly diminished.

Chen Shi returned the mobile phone, “Was Hou Yue caught?”

“Yes. We found the tool for his crimes at his house, and found something on the computer, which is still being decrypted.”

“You’re fast.”

“I won't take your credit. It was you who paved the way first, and that’s why we were so quick.”

Chen Shi thought that if Hou Yue was not a cornered dog jumping over the wall, killing Wang Daji, and running away stupidly, he would not have been arrested so quickly.

But Hou Yue had actually managed to discover his own address. In a sense, Wang Daji had died for Chen Shi.

Chen Shi said, “I want to see that man's body.”

Lin Qiupu brought Chen Shi to the morgue and he saw Wang Daji's body. Chen Shi was a little sad at heart. He tried to say calmly, “He really does look like me.”

“He had two ID cards on him. One says ‘Chen Shi’, the other says ‘Wang Daji’... The latter ID is also fake, and we still can't figure out why he was trying to impersonate you. Who exactly is this guy? But we’ve already asked people to search the DNA database to see if this person had a prior conviction.”

Chen Shi widened his eyes slightly. If he did find a match, wouldn't this dead person become Song Lang? He had already guessed that Peng Sijue had swapped their blood samples.

“Couldn’t he have impersonated someone else? Why did he have to impersonate me?” Chen Shi said.

“This matter has passed, but it does not mean that I don’t doubt you. You must have a secret, but it just hasn’t been discovered yet.”

“Forget it, when have your instincts been correct?”

After parting ways with Lin Qiupu, Chen Shi immediately went to the forensics lab. Fortunately, Peng Sijue was off early today, and everyone else was off work as well.

He went to pick up his car out of habit, but when he walked to the garage, he remembered that he didn’t drive here. Peng Sijue drove out in his car, stopped next to him, and opened the passenger door.

Chen Shi got into the car and was pondering if he should say “Thank you”, when Peng Sijue said, “I will only help you this once!”

“Is my DNA still being matched?”

“I myself am responsible for doing it, and I will tell Captain Lin that I can’t find a match... Even I have to lie.”

“I owe you one!”

The car was quiet for a while. Peng Sijue drove the car onto the motorway. Chen Shi found out that this didn’t seem to be his way home.

“Tell me the truth. Did you shoot Han[1] Luoxi and Li Mu back then?” Peng Sijue very calmly asked the question that had been hidden in his heart for a long time.

“No... Where are we going?”

“Back to the scene at that time! I have thought about what I’d do when I saw you again countless times. Would I slap you in the face? Ask if you were doing well? In the end, what I wanted to do most was to find out the truth about what happened then.”

“Old Peng, I...” Chen Shi had a thousand words in his heart that he wanted to say.

Peng Sijue reached out and stopped him from speaking.

When it was getting dark, the two reached a warehouse in the suburbs, and Chen Shi looked at the burning clouds in the sky[2]. It was as if they had returned to that day.

That night three years ago, Han Luoxi had called and said, “Li Mu has been abducted and he asked me to go there alone, otherwise he would be killed!”

“Don't be fooled by him! It's a trap!”

“This is also our only chance to arrest him!”

Song Lang shouted desperately on the phone, but Han Luoxi said “I love you” before hanging up. Song Lang found her location through the mobile GPS locator, informed the police, and rushed over.

When he entered the warehouse, he saw Han Luoxi enter a room, and immediately chased after her. Several gunshots made him tremble.

When he entered the dark warehouse room, he found that Han Luoxi and Li Mu were lying in a pool of blood. He picked up Han Luoxi's body and his heart was numb. His tears kept falling.

Footsteps alarmed him, and he immediately grabbed Han Luoxi's pistol on the ground and pointed at the culprit.

After more than a year of hunting, he saw the true face of Zhou Xiao for the first time. A young man who could not be more ordinary. Zhou Xiao said, “Officer Song, haven't you always wanted to arrest me? Are you planning to kill me here?”

“Go to death, scum!” Song Lang was full of anger and pulled the trigger. Even at this moment, the police academy training still influenced him subconsciously. His first shot hit Zhou Xiao's shoulder.

There wasn’t a second shot. That was the last bullet.

Song Lang pulled the trigger in vain and Zhou Xiao kicked his wrist, making the gun fly out of his hands. Then he sprinkled a powder onto his face. Song Lang held his breath, but still inhaled some powder. His brain suddenly felt muddled.

Zhou Xiao's smiling face was distorted in his field of vision. “I forgot to tell you that the bullets in their bodies were also shot using this gun... The great detective Song Lang, actually killing his superior and his partner with his very own hands! I can't wait to see the headlines in the newspapers tomorrow!"

Song Lang suddenly realized that he had stepped into a well-designed trap, but his brain was anesthetized by the drug and he was unable to think.

He had only one conscious thought. He had to continue living to avenge Han Luoxi, so he ran out and tried his best to stagger to a nearby hill and wade over a river. There he fell down and lay in the cold river water for an hour before he was woken up by the police sirens at the bottom of the hill.

When the car reached the front of the warehouse, Peng Sijue stopped the car and got out.

Chen Shi was awakened from his memories. Returning back here, he felt like a lifetime had passed.

“Tell me what happened back then!” Peng Sijue urged.

1. The author wrote “Han Luoxi” in this chapter, but I recall her being called “Qin Luoxi back” in chapter 232.

2. The orange, peachy and red colors you can see during some sunsets.