Chapter 58: Sniper

The next day, Bai Yiyi didn’t accompany his boyfriend to work. He stayed home alone.

He figured his phone would be ringing off the hook all day, and heading to the city bureau would only make things inconvenient.

Sure enough, the calls poured in from the ACD Grand Prix organizers, his university advisor, classmates from his high school art classes, Shi You, and even his mom a thousand miles away. Anyone with his number boiled over with questions, one call after another.

By the end, he had to fumble awkwardly with the charger cord just to keep the phone powered up and miss no more calls.

Once he’d finally sated everyone’s gossiping appetites, the day was nearly over.

Glancing at the time, Bai Yiyi texted his boyfriend: “How soon till you’re back?”

No reply came for ages, not until nearly eight o’clock. So he dialed instead.

No one picked up…

He was probably tied up with some urgent business, out of signal range, Bai Yiyi told himself.

Yan Tuo was indeed busy—not with official duties, though. He was using work as cover to bail someone out of the station, his first abuse of power in a decade on the force.

Once they were in the car, the man with a face cold enough to frost over the windshield fixed his glare on the handcuffed Lu Renjia. “What the hell happened? No time for a simple diary handoff, but plenty of leisure for a midnight stroll along the Yanjiang District riverbank? A brawl that ends in death?”

The bald man pulled a miserable face. “I-I’m just the unluckiest bastard alive. Who’d have thought the guy was a total psycho? I was chilling by the river just fine when this drunk asshole staggers up and pukes all over me. I mouth off a bit, and bam—he pulls a knife. Self-defense, pure and simple!”

Yan Tuo snorted. “Self-defense has degrees. The guy’s dead now. That’s at minimum overzealous defense turning into negligent homicide—three to seven years.”

Lu Renjia’s regret crashed over him like a tidal wave from the river at high tide. He hadn’t gone for a leisurely walk; he’d been played for a fool.

The very night after agreeing to the diary deal, a message from M had popped up on his computer. Already second-guessing his lowball price, he’d jumped at the chance with a second buyer and promptly doubled down, playing hard to get.

The other party hadn’t haggled, agreeing straight to ten million and setting a time for the exchange: cash for diary.

Mr. M had this godlike rep online, so Lu Renjia stayed sharp. He picked a busy riverside spot for the meet, stashed the diary elsewhere, planning to grab the cash first then fetch it. He’d even backed up images on his phone as leverage in case things went south.

But after freezing his ass off half the night with no sign of the guy, he’d crossed paths with a drunken lunatic instead. One blurry scuffle later, he was in a cell, phone lost in the fight—a true double whammy of man and money gone.

After stewing half the day, he’d cracked and dropped Yan Tuo’s name, hoping for a lifeline.

Screw the extra five million now—money you lived to spend was the only money that counted. Yan Tuo’s arrival earned some genuine gratitude. “Captain Yan, you have my word. The favor of pulling me out tonight? Lu Renjia won’t forget it. Diary’s hidden safe and sound. I’ll deliver it straight to you soon.”

Yan Tuo tapped the handcuffs on his wrists. “You’re getting the wrong idea. Dreaming big, huh? You’re my informant. I’m just hauling you out temporarily for a lead. You own your mess—don’t even think about rabbiting. You won’t get far.”

Lu Renjia gaped, the curse word lodged in his throat, unable to spit it out.

Yan Tuo followed the slap with a carrot. “No more funny business. Hand over what I want nice and smooth, and I’ll play good Samaritan to the end—hook you up with a solid lawyer. It wasn’t your fight to start. Suspended sentence isn’t out of reach. Worst case, you do two or three years inside. Walk out with five million, pinch pennies, and it’ll last the rest of your days. Life’s long, after all.”

The carrot-and-stick routine, delivered with real concern, snuffed out any stray thoughts in Lu Renjia’s head. Head hanging, he spilled the diary’s rough hiding spot.

A black Hummer tore out of the Yanhe Police Station in Yanjiang District. Two minutes later, an old pickup peeled out of the parking lot, merging onto the ring highway in the same direction.

At ten o’clock that night, on the abandoned construction site of a half-built eyesore in Xiacheng District, Yan Tuo hauled the man from the car. “Which floor?”

Lu Renjia stared up at the gaping black maw of the high-rise, counting silently in his head. Hesitation crept into his voice. “Eleventh or twelfth, I think. No floor numbers marked—got ’em mixed up. But I left a sign. Head up and we’ll spot it.”

Yan Tuo’s brow furrowed slightly. “Why stash it here? Bank safe deposit box would’ve been simpler.”

Lu Renjia chuckled awkwardly. “It’s free. Place has been rotting for years—no one’s coming. Hid it high up, too. Safe as houses.”

Emboldened now that he had backup, he tried to haggle. “Captain Yan, any chance of ditching the cuffs? Kinda hard to grab stuff like this.”

Yan Tuo didn’t budge. “You’re not walking on your hands. Once we’re there, I’ll handle it. You stay put.”

The entryway was pitch-black, not a hand’s width of visibility. Yan Tuo pulled out his phone to switch on the light—and spotted the missed calls from his boyfriend, plus a string of WeChats.

He fired off a quick reply: “On silent, missed your call. Don’t worry—heading home soon.”

Then he flicked on the flashlight and nudged Lu Renjia’s shoulder. Lead the way.

The reinforced concrete shell stood alone, a skeletal tower some fifteen or sixteen stories tall. The frame was up, but the developers had gone bust before cladding even started, leaving it to rot.

The entry and stairwells were inky voids, but take care with your footing up a flight, and each landing opened wide to the night—clear views of twinkling lights in the nearby residential blocks.

Lu Renjia, pushing forty with a body wrecked by smokes, booze, and all-nighters, tipped the scales at nearly two hundred pounds. Two flights wore him out; Yan Tuo tamped down his impatience, letting the man catch his breath before pressing on.

They finally hit the tenth floor. If the guy was straight with him, the goal lay just one or two levels up. But the sweat-drenched Lu Renjia called for another break, shuffling extra steps toward the outer wall in hopes of a breeze to cool off.

While Lu Renjia rested, Yan Tuo checked for a reply from his boyfriend. In that split-second glance down, a muffled grunt escaped from a few paces away. Lu Renjia’s bulk staggered back, then crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.

A bloodflower bloomed rapidly over his left chest, heart side—ghastly and vivid under the phone’s silvery beam.

Yan Tuo dropped low against the wall, whipping his head toward the shot. A hundred meters off, in a residential tower, a shadow flickered—just a glimpse before melting into the night.

Sniper range. And not some amateur.

He punched 120 for an ambulance, then Cao Yiman. Careful as he could, Yan Tuo dragged the man to cover against the wall and checked the wound.

He stripped off his jacket, wadded it, and jammed it against the hole to slow the bleeding. All the while, he called the man’s name, desperate to keep him conscious.

Pointless. In moments, Lu Renjia started hacking up blood in gouts—bullet must’ve shredded a lung, flooding his airways.

Out more than in now, he was fading fast. Yan Tuo shoved speculation aside; no time for the why or the who. “Where exactly on the upper floors? The diary!”

Lu Renjia’s eyes wouldn’t stay open, thoughts scattering. He struggled for words, but maybe the dying see clear: he latched onto the crux. “He… doesn’t want money. Just… wants your… dad’s life. Family… acquaintance. Vendetta?… I…”

A last flare of clarity hit, words tumbling faster, sharper.

“Shouldn’t have been so damn greedy. Tonight was M—ten mil, but no show. Cousins’ deaths were fishy. Split was set beforehand. Him and Brother Lei, a couple—seven for them, three for the other. Old pals for years—no way they’d kill over scraps. They died… died by… M…”

He cut off abruptly, gone silent.

“Lu Renjia! Lu Renjia?”

Yan Tuo called again as the ambulance wail grew near. He didn’t let up, pressing the wound with all he had—do what you can, leave the rest to fate.

Minutes later, the medics huffed onto the scene and jumped into resuscitation.

Yan Tuo yanked his hands free and bolted upstairs.

The eleventh floor yielded nothing after a sweep—except a disturbed pile of construction debris in the corner and, across the hall, a pitch-black fire stair entrance leering like a mocking grin.

No giving up; he climbed to the roof. Still zilch.

Panting lightly, Yan Tuo stood rooted on the windswept top, peering down. Crushing defeat slammed into him.

Once the cold clarity settled, he pieced it together. Tonight’s “mishaps” reeked of orchestration.

They’d known from jump Lu Renjia wouldn’t bring the diary. Why show? Send a drunk to land him in a cell instead.

Afterward, they had patiently lain in wait for him to walk right into their trap before tailing him all the way to the building.

With his level of vigilance, there was no way he could have missed a vehicle tracking him so closely nearby. He didn’t even need to speculate—they must have tampered with the Hummer while he was at the station bailing out his people.

From the moment of the attack to waiting for emergency aid, not even a quarter of an hour had passed. Yet in those scant fifteen minutes, the assailant had calmly lined up a sniper shot before swiftly ascending the stairs from the far end to snatch the notebook. The technical skill, sheer audacity, and ironclad composure on display were utterly astounding.

Their insight into human nature ran terrifyingly deep.

How had they known the exact floor? How had they timed the shot with such flawless precision?

It all boiled down to patience and careful observation. They’d seen the pair pause on the tenth floor, Lu Renjia looking thoroughly relaxed while he himself pulled out his phone to scroll—that was the most idle interlude right before the final ascent, proof positive that the target floor was near at hand.

In the end, their bet had paid off. He hadn’t ditched his companion to rush upstairs alone, leaving just one floor between him and the notebook that held the truth—lost from that moment onward, by a mile.

Yan Tuo felt a chill run down his spine. This was hands down the most formidable opponent he had ever faced since joining the force.

In the end, all his questions distilled to just one: why not simply kill him outright? That would have been by far the simplest way to tie up the loose end.