Bai Yiyi had no idea how long he had slept—perhaps from one pitch-black night straight into another.
When he finally opened his eyes, he was no longer in the garden sunroom. Instead, he lay on his familiar bed with that familiar pillow, and beside him was the man he knew down to his very bones, staring at him with wide eyes. Who knew how long he had been watching?
The string of ordeals over the past few days left Bai Yiyi with the surreal sensation of still being trapped in a dream. For a moment, he didn’t dare believe the man before him was real. He could only murmur softly, “Yan Tuo, I dreamed of you again. Where are you right now?”
A gentle touch of fingers brushed his belly at once, followed by a clear voice. “No dream, Yiyi. We’re home.”
Bai Yiyi finally snapped back to reality, but words failed him. He froze for a bit, then folded his wings around the fingers pressed to his chest. He lowered his head and nuzzled close, rubbing back and forth against them.
After a few rubs, he asked anxiously, “There’s still some bruising on your head. Nothing else wrong, right? Did they catch all those guys?”
Even knowing the matter had likely been settled, he wanted to hear it straight from his owner.
Yan Tuo glossed over the details in a few light sentences. Truth be told, he didn’t know much himself. When his colleagues in Province Y had pulled out all the stops, he had still been completely out cold. Once he regained even a sliver of awareness, he hadn’t bothered digging into the details. He had simply rushed home.
Bai Yiyi had just started to relax when a sudden realization hit him—he was still bald, and his body was a pitiful mess of injuries. His head drooped even lower as he said embarrassedly, “Don’t stare at me. I’m ugly as hell.”
Yan Tuo used his finger to tease the little head upward. “Not ugly at all. You’re very good-looking. That mushroom cut never suited you anyway. How about your human form? How bad are the injuries? Transform, and let me take a look.”
Bai Yiyi hadn’t shifted to human form since getting hurt. Human and bird forms shared the same physical foundation, after all, so it was anyone’s guess where the injuries had landed.
He quickly checked his point total. It was still teetering right on the passing line—barely enough for an hour. “Okay,” he replied softly.
He shifted into human form and dove under the covers to hide. But the blanket was immediately yanked away, leaving him exposed under the glow of the bedside lamp as Yan Tuo examined him closely.
“Wh-what are you doing? I’m naked.” Bai Yiyi flushed with mortification and tugged at the sheet.
When it came to raw strength, the man half-reclining beside him was like the square of two Bai Yiyis combined. No amount of pulling would budge it. Instead, it earned him a teasing remark from his boyfriend. “Don’t squirm. Let me get a good look. It’s not like I haven’t seen it before. What’s there to be afraid of…”
With the blanket a lost cause, Bai Yiyi could only cover his face with the pillow. Out of sight, out of mind—at least it hid the important bits, or so he told himself.
Yan Tuo carefully inspected him from top to bottom before breathing a sigh of relief. “You’re fine. Just a couple of faint scratches on your arms, nothing serious on your legs, and a bit of red swelling around your ankle.”
Bai Yiyi patted his head again. Yep—hair was still there.
The system really came through. He wanted to give it a huge thumbs-up.
The injuries that looked so gruesome on his bird form were far more minor in human shape. Were they scaled by surface area or something? No idea. All that mattered was that his hair was intact. He had no intention of embarrassing himself in front of his boyfriend.
To his surprise, the moment that gush of customer satisfaction crossed his mind, his points surged by thirty. Delighted, Bai Yiyi shared the good news with his boyfriend.
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Yan Tuo’s gaze took on a heated edge. The serious focus of the examination vanished, replaced by eyes filled with a warm, jade-like glow toward the pale figure before him. Days of bone-deep longing joined the mix, and the spark of desire quickly blazed into an inferno.
“Oh? That big a jump all at once? Then you can hold out for a few hours, no problem, right?”
“Wh-what do you mean?” Bai Yiyi’s voice came out guilty and breathless, even a touch disingenuous.
The light snapped off. A soft rustle of fabric followed, and then a muscular body, radiating intense heat, covered him. The pillow vanished somewhere, dense kisses raining down on his face amid a husky murmur. “Yiyi, I can’t wait any longer. Life’s too short…”
He said no more. A man of action always preferred deeds to words, teasing the permission from Bai Yiyi’s lips into trembling waves.
“Mm… ah~”
~~~
The next day, Bai Yiyi’s point total plummeted below the passing line once more.
Not only that, but fresh injuries had piled onto the old ones—and they weren’t minor. The guy was a new driver still in the break-in phase, half out of his mind, and hadn’t held back a single bit.
The joy from how the wounds had shrunk when shifting from bird to human? Now, shifting back from human to bird brought payback in full: wounds expanded, and the pain was excruciating.
But pride kept him silent—not a peep. Afterward, he just had his boyfriend apply some ointment. Now he was toughing it out to go to work as usual.
Yan Tuo returned to city bureau headquarters. His ordeal over the past few days was common knowledge, thanks to the full-team search and rescue effort. Sun Lei was the first to spot him back safe and sound.
The young woman’s emotions ran high, her eyes faintly red. She covered it with an enthusiastic shout. “Captain Yan, let me brew you some coffee!”
She carried the coffee into the leader’s office. Her gaze flicked to the bruise on his temple before the pathetic sight of the White Dumpling stirred her sympathy. She cooed a stream of sweet endearments—little darling, little baby—and insisted on staying at his desk to shell a big pile of melon seeds. It was a sickbed meal for Tangyuan.
In the half hour or so she lingered, Zhao Ge, Fang Ping, Little Liu, and even Qi Yuyang—who had only been on the job a few days—dropped by to check on him. Sun Lei noticed that her boss’s energy and mood were exceptionally bright.
The White Dumpling, on the other hand, was utterly listless. And clingy as ever.
He ate two of the fragrant seed kernels—probably just to give face after her half-day effort—then called out, “Yan Tuo.” His owner scooped him up and tucked him into his shirt pocket for a nap.
Sun Lei could swear that single “Yan Tuo” dripped with coquettishness, pitch-perfect like her best friend calling her boyfriend.
And Captain Yan? The dumpling called once, and it was like telepathy—he knew exactly what the little guy wanted. He placed him in the pocket like a priceless treasure, even bending down for a kiss. The clinginess had her inwardly shaking her head. She wondered if the future boss’s wife might get jealous enough to see the little bird as a romantic rival.
Yan Tuo had no idea about the team flower’s private speculations. For most of the morning, he fielded visits from all sides while sorting the files on his desk. Once he felt ready, he headed up to the third floor to confer with Li Zhong.
The main issue was Xu Qingru’s sentencing and charges. They still hadn’t found the murder weapon in the Lu Renjia case, so key evidence was lacking for conviction.
M’s identity was ironclad proof, at least. Xu had thoroughly wrecked his computer before fleeing, but the Technical Group had worked their magic. They recovered most of the hard drive and browser history. The pity was there was no precedent in the country for convicting on thoughtcrime alone. Nailing him on that front would be tough.
So Yan Tuo’s proposal was to reopen the Yan family villa kidnapping case from over a decade ago. Charge Xu with masterminding the kidnapping and killing the three kidnappers, and refile.
The case was ancient history—not easy by any means. But he had kept tabs on it relentlessly. The physical evidence, which should have been destroyed fifteen years after closure per regulations, had been preserved through his connections. That gave the refiling a solid shot.
Li Zhong had faint dark circles under his eyes, clear signs of a sleepless night. Seeing the root of his troubles looking so smug and full of vigor only added to his irritation.
Once business was settled, he seized the chance to vent. “Looks like that review report was a waste of paper. Confronting Xu Qingru for a confession without full prep? Call it personal heroism if you’re kind; undisciplined and disorganized if you’re not. Rewrite it—ten thousand words minimum. We’ll read it aloud at the end-of-month meeting.”
Yan Tuo’s face fell at once. Writing was his Achilles’ heel. He tried to protest. “It wasn’t even an official case back then—just my private business. How could I misuse public resources and make the team work overtime on a weekend?
“Besides, I thought I’d fooled him. It was just a probe—no intention of mobilizing anyone. It was all an accident… Esteemed leader, three thousand words is already murder. Ten thousand, and I’ll drop dead?”
For emphasis, he rubbed his temple. “I’m still injured here, rushing back to slave away for you. Isn’t that sincere enough?”
Li Zhong bared his teeth but relented, considering the guy’s recent brush with death. “Five thousand. Not a word less. Now go—get that refiling application airtight.”
They had hashed everything out nicely. But Xu Qingru was never one to stick to the script.
That very afternoon, word came from K City Detention Center. Shortly after lunch, Xu Qingru was found dead in his bedding.
A preliminary check revealed cyanide hidden in a fake tooth—instant death. Officially ruled a suicide out of guilt.
The dead paid their debts. All of Yan Tuo’s exhaustive efforts—the thick stack of documents he had prepared—turned to waste paper. He hadn’t even gotten to face the man properly in court before Xu used his own life to claim one final victory.
Yes, Yan Tuo felt he had lost. Frustration and emptiness washed over him.
This wasn’t the victory he wanted. A beast cloaked in human skin, venomous to the core, had escaped full accountability. He slipped away bearing only the label of suspect. Where was heaven’s justice? Where was earthly righteousness?
Worst of all, because of their blood ties, the family had to handle his affairs.
Yan Tuo was absolutely not going. The mere thought of the man’s name turned his stomach—let alone helping with the funeral.
Besides, his little boyfriend was still injured—he couldn’t take even half a step away from him. Right then and there, he and Li Zhong spent a good long while shoving responsibility back and forth, but neither could persuade the other. In the end, they both turned to Yu Lixiang, dumping the whole matter in his lap.
Yu Lixiang, who had passed sixty and worked as a neighborhood cop for his entire career, had seen every manner of family scandal over the years. When he heard about Xu Qingru’s situation, he recovered his composure far more quickly than expected. Without a word, he set off straight for Province Y.
A few days later, he returned home travel-worn and dusty. Rather than settling in first, he headed directly to J City. There, he rounded up his daughter and son-in-law, along with his nephew, and called a family meeting—one worthy of mid-level cadres and above.
