Luo Tian sent a message to Bai Cheng and then turned off his phone. The police officers were all puzzled. Eventually, Fang Chong, lying in the hospital bed, told everyone what had happened, and reminded them not to disturb Luo Tian for now. Once he felt better, Fang Chong would personally have a chat with Luo Tian.
Late that night, Bai Cheng received a message from Luo Tian. He said, “I’m sorry, the mission failed. The Mudskipper and the Crocodile got away. It’s all my fault.”
Bai Cheng had witnessed Luo Tian’s failure and saw his breakdown. She sent several messages to Luo Tian but received no further replies.
After waiting for two days without any word from him, Bai Cheng decided she couldn’t wait any longer. On the third day, she brought Pharaoh to the police station to see if Luo Tian was there. The officers in the lobby were surprised when they saw Pharaoh and started whispering to each other.
Bai Cheng overheard one female officer saying quietly to another, “Isn’t that Pharaoh? Did Captain Luo give him to her?”
Bai Cheng glanced around and then walked up to Officer Liu, asking, “Officer Liu, is Luo Tian here?”
Officer Liu glanced at Pharaoh, then back at Bai Cheng, and said, “Captain Luo is on leave these days. He’s not here.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Captain Luo’s phone is off. We don’t know where he is. He didn’t leave any instructions. But Deputy Fang might know. He’s in the hospital right now. Hold on, I’ll give you the address.”
Officer Liu tore a piece of paper, wrote an address on it, and handed it to Bai Cheng.
Bai Cheng drove straight to the hospital indicated on the paper. She bought a fruit basket from a small shop near the hospital, left Pharaoh in the car, and took the elevator up to the fifth floor. Maybe she had been too anxious to notice until she entered the inpatient department, surrounded by the white walls and medical staff in white coats. The overwhelming white suddenly made her eyes hurt, and it reminded her of the day Lu Heng was killed. It had also been in a cold white hospital, with a circle of blue police uniforms, and only Lu Heng’s white coat standing out. He was the only one unarmed, yet he stood in the front, facing the Mudskipper’s knife.
Bai Cheng remembered the moment Lu Heng fell. At the time, she had been held back by Director Lu, unable to move, watching helplessly as blood spurted from Lu Heng’s neck. The way he fell was like an angel plummeting from the sky.
Thinking about this, Bai Cheng felt a sharp pain in her head and struggled to catch her breath. She leaned against the wall, squatting down with her arms wrapped around her chest, trying hard to take deep breaths.
A passing medical staff member noticed Bai Cheng crouching against the wall. She knelt beside her and asked, “Miss, are you okay? What’s wrong? Are you a patient or a family member?”
Hearing someone’s voice beside her, Bai Cheng calmed down a bit. She took deep breaths, trying to regain her composure, then stood up with the help of the wall, saying, “I’m fine, just felt unwell suddenly.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? Where are you heading? I can take you there.”
“The General Surgery Section 2, Room 7.”
“That’s just ahead. Turn the corner and go straight.”
Bai Cheng followed her until they reached Room 7.
“This is it. Go ahead.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. If you feel unwell, just go to the nurse’s station. Don’t push yourself too hard.”
“Mm, I know. Thank you.”
The nurse nodded, giving Bai Cheng a worried glance before turning and leaving.
Bai Cheng walked into the ward. Fang Chong was in Bed 2, sitting up with thick bandages wrapped around him, starting from his armpits, up to his shoulder, and around his injured back. The woman sitting next to his bed, likely his wife, was peeling an orange for him.
As Fang Chong took the peeled orange, he saw Bai Cheng standing at the doorway. Using his uninjured left hand, he waved her over, saying, “You must be Miss Bai, right? Come on in.”
Bai Cheng approached the bed. Fang Chong pointed to her and said to his wife, “She’s Luo Tian’s friend and a relative of one of the victims in our case.”
Fang Chong’s wife stood up, offering her seat to Bai Cheng, “You two talk. I’ll go check with the nurse about his medication.” With that, she left the room.
Bai Cheng placed the fruit basket on the bedside table and sat down.
Fang Chong asked, “Has Luo Tian contacted you?”
“Two nights ago, he sent me a message, but I haven’t been able to reach him since. I came here to ask you where he went. Why has he gone silent? It was just a failed arrest; why would he have such a strong reaction?”
“I know where he is, but before you go looking for him, there are some things you need to know,” Fang Chong said.
“Luo Tian and I are the closest of brothers in the police force. We’ve been through life and death together, taken bullets together, attended countless weddings of teammates, and just as many funerals. He’s the team captain, and I’m his deputy. We were always the best partners. But it wasn’t like this from the start. At first, Luo Tian’s closest friend was Jiang Shuo.”
Bai Cheng immediately remembered the photo she had seen in Luo Tian’s room at the church that day—the one in the overturned frame, showing a young, spirited police officer with a carefree smile, arm around Luo Tian’s shoulder.
“Jiang Shuo joined the police academy with us. Out of the 35 people in our class, he was accepted as the top student, I was second, and Luo Tian was ranked fifth from the bottom. Yes, that’s right, the now-imposing Captain Luo was once at the bottom of the class a few years ago. Luo Tian and Jiang Shuo grew up together. Jiang Shuo was only one day older, but he always looked out for Luo Tian. When Luo Tian failed the running tests, Jiang Shuo would run alongside him. When Luo Tian couldn’t climb the ropes, Jiang Shuo would secretly help him, even if they both got punished for it. Jiang Shuo was amazing. Even when he had a high fever, he’d still come first in every test. Everyone admired him. He had this way of smiling and joking around that made you feel a lot less tired after just a few minutes with him. We all thought he was destined for greatness.”
“And he was. Four years later, everyone in our class, except for the five who repeated a year, graduated smoothly. Jiang Shuo was still number one, and I was second, but Luo Tian had improved and graduated tenth. After graduation, we joined the city police together. That’s when I really became part of their tight-knit duo. We became a trio. Even in the police force, Jiang Shuo stood out. He was sharp, had boundless energy, and soon everyone knew his name. Within a year, he was promoted from a second-level officer to a first-level superintendent. Meanwhile, I became a second-level officer, forever the ‘second-best.’ And Luo Tian, well, he became a first-level officer by following the usual track.”
“Our bond didn’t change despite our different ranks. I admired Jiang Shuo, and I was content with my role as the eternal number two. Jiang Shuo never acted superior, never looked down on us. Luo Tian, even as an officer, didn’t care much for ranks or promotions. He was never the type to stand out or seek recognition. He just did his job well, living a calm and steady life. We were different, but day by day, we became each other’s greatest support.”
“One day, we got a call from an animal clinic. They said a stray dog had been brought in from a shelter, but they couldn’t save it. When they examined it, they found traces of drugs in its body—drugs like amphetamines. We traced the source and eventually narrowed it down to some factories on the outskirts of the city. That area was pretty desolate, with only a few scattered factories and some abandoned houses that used to be part of a village. We split into three teams. Jiang Shuo and Luo Tian went to the sewage treatment plant, I went with some others to the soy sauce factory, and the rest went to the resin plant.”
“When the other teams and I heard gunshots from the treatment plant, we rushed over to find chaos. Several injured officers were lying on the ground, and we discovered an underground hideout, a drug lab, where the suspects had been making drugs. The officers had the suspects under control, but Jiang Shuo and Luo Tian were nowhere to be seen. A wounded officer told us that Jiang Shuo and Luo Tian had gone after an escaping suspect.”
“We searched for a long time, and the police sent in reinforcements. Eventually, we found them in an abandoned church on the hillside. They were tied together, back to back, on a tall cross in the center of the church. When we found them, Jiang Shuo’s pupils were dilated, his lips were pale, and he had stopped breathing. The coroner determined he had died from a drug overdose, his heart had stopped, and he was brain-dead within minutes. As for Luo Tian, he had been shot in the chest, barely alive. We all thought he wouldn’t make it either, but he survived. The bullet had embedded in his heart muscle, causing him to lose consciousness, but it missed his left ventricle by half a centimeter. If it had been slightly off, he would have died instantly.”
“Once Luo Tian’s body had recovered, we asked him about the details of that day. He told us that during the chase, he had been ambushed, and Jiang Shuo had been captured while trying to save him. The drug dealers forced Jiang Shuo to take drugs. Then, as the dealers’ reinforcements arrived, they shot Luo Tian in the chest before leaving. Luo Tian thought he would never wake up again until he opened his eyes on the hospital bed, staring up at the white ceiling.”
“The one who forced Jiang Shuo to take the drugs and shot Luo Tian was the Crocodile. The one who tied them up was his underling, the Mudskipper.”
“We searched the entire mountain after that and found that the Crocodile and the Mudskipper had fled down the other side, getting into a Toyota that was waiting for them. We’ve been trying to catch them for three years. The closest we ever got, aside from the operation at Hongji Hospital, was the raid at the Lidun Hotel this past Wednesday. But as you already know, the Mudskipper escaped again, and this time, Luo Tian… This was his first face-to-face encounter with the Crocodile in three years, and none of us expected his PTSD to suddenly flare up.”
“Over the past three years, everyone at the police station has seen how hard Luo Tian has pushed himself. Not long after Jiang Shuo’s death, his only remaining family, his mother, took her own life six months later. Luo Tian blamed himself for everything, just like this time, even though no one in the station ever held him responsible. We were just grateful he survived. How could we blame him? And we could all see how much Jiang Shuo’s death devastated him. He would never have wanted to hurt Jiang Shuo, just like Jiang Shuo would have always chosen to save him. But Luo Tian couldn’t move past it. He believed that if he hadn’t insisted on chasing the drug dealers, if he hadn’t been so weak, Jiang Shuo wouldn’t have been caught, and he wouldn’t have died. So after that, Luo Tian trained himself like a madman, even harder than when we were in the academy—combat, shooting, takedowns. He trained until midnight every day. In just six months, he went from being average in physical fitness to building a muscular physique, and he ranked first in every fitness test. He became obsessed with any leads on the Mudskipper and the Crocodile, analyzing every detail over and over.”
“He told me, ‘I must catch the Crocodile to bring peace to Jiang Shuo and his mother’s spirits.’ Because of his relentless dedication, this man who was once stuck in the middle ranks quickly rose from an officer to a team captain in just three years. And me, after years of being number two to Jiang Shuo, I continued being number two to him. But I’m not jealous at all. I know he’s carrying the weight of death. An ordinary person like me could never keep up with him. I don’t envy him at all. I just feel sorry for him. The old Luo Tian is gone. He inherited Jiang Shuo’s battlefield and turned himself into a second Jiang Shuo.”
“We all thought that this time, we could finally avenge Jiang Shuo. But who would have thought that Luo Tian, who had been cheerful and optimistic all these years, had hidden trauma? None of us noticed, not even him. When he was supposed to pull the trigger, his hand trembled, and he watched the Crocodile escape right in front of him. He even saw me take a bullet for him and get injured.”
“Miss Bai, Luo Tian has never been one to run from a fight, but this time, he took off his police cap, removed his uniform, and walked away from his responsibilities.”
“Miss Bai, he should be at his other home right now. I’ll give you the address and the key. You should go find him.” Fang Chong set down the orange he hadn’t even eaten and took a piece of paper and pen from the bedside table, writing down an address. He also took a key from his briefcase and handed both to Bai Cheng. “I hope you can bring back the Luo Tian we once knew.”
Bai Cheng took the address and key, then drove to the location Fang Chong had given her.
