I set you up on a blind date, and you've managed to overcome all the weirdness?

After Zhao Jianguo finished reading, he looked up at Wang Yue.

"He went to steal the selfie stick? Does that mean his bizarre death was related to the woman he was with?"

Wang Yue nodded.

Zhao Jianguo looked at Lin Yan.

Lin Yan met Zhao Jianguo's gaze and mentally prepared several ways to answer.

In the end, I chose the simplest and most straightforward one.

"Captain Zhao, I'm sorry I can't reveal more about that person."

Zhao Jianguo was silent for a while, and then he did something that none of the people around him expected.

He didn't ask any further questions.

He acted as if he hadn't heard, looked away, tapped the table with his pipe, and turned to wave to the ambulance team that had just arrived outside.

"Get the wounded to the hospital first, and stitch up or repair what needs to be repaired."

Lin Yan was stunned for a moment.

This reaction is so strange.

Given Zhao Jianguo's temperament, he wouldn't be so easily appeased.

But Zhao Jianguo walked away at that moment, muttering to himself.

"If you steal the selfie stick, the weird dies."

"They stole the selfie stick..."

It was as if she was talking to herself, and also as if she was talking to Lin Yan.

Su Qinghan, who was standing next to Wang Yue, suddenly looked up.

"Team Leader Zhao, survivor descriptions and residual energy analysis..."

"Stop analyzing this, go write the report."

He interrupted Su Qinghan and turned to Lin Yan, saying, "Come with me."

Lin Yan followed him to the outside of the store, in front of a car.

He opened the car door and let Lin Yan get in.

Zhao Jianguo drove the car out of the commercial street.

After passing two intersections, I suddenly turned the steering wheel and entered an alley without streetlights.

Lin Yan was thrown off balance by the inertia, and just as he regained his balance, the car had already stopped.

Zhao Jianguo turned off the engine.

The carriage fell silent immediately.

He placed his hand on the steering wheel, the fingers of his prosthetic arm tapping the wheel rhythmically.

With his other hand, he shook a cigarette out of the pack and put it in his mouth.

"Lin Yan".

"Um?"

"Don't you think..." He paused, the cigarette curling slightly at the corner of his mouth.

"I didn't ask you who that woman was because I didn't want to know?"

Lin Yan looked into Zhao Jianguo's eyes in the rearview mirror but didn't answer.

Zhao Jianguo took the cigarette from his mouth and twirled it between his fingers.

"I've been doing this since I was twenty."

"The word 'grotesque' didn't exist back then; the document said 'monster spirits.'"

"Any information about this kind of incident must be sealed off."

"The envelope was stamped with a top-secret seal, so even the messenger didn't know what he was delivering."

"I had a master back then."

"Guess what the first thing he taught me was?"

"What is it?" Lin Yan honestly played the straight man.

"That's the bottom line."

He put the cigarette back in his mouth, took out a lighter, and the flickering flame illuminated half of his face.

"My master told me that people don't just deal with other living beings when they live in this world."

"Once you understand some things, your perspective will change."

"You can see what others can't see, and you can do what others can't do."

"People inside the bureau, people outside, people outside the rules—everyone gets involved to some extent."

"Those who don't get involved won't live long."

"Those who get too involved are not human."

He exhaled a puff of smoke, which spread throughout the carriage.

"That's why I won't ask you."

Zhao Jianguo turned his head, his face turned to the back seat.

"I won't ask who that woman is, how you met her, or how you killed that weirdo who was exploring restaurants."

"I won't ask you whether you were just lucky last night or if you were hiding something."

He spoke calmly, as if he were stating a routine matter.

"I don't care about any of that."

"You're not the first person to bring a secret into the bureau, and you won't be the last."

"Which of my underlings doesn't have their own connections?"

"Do you think I don't know where all those bottles and jars that Sister Liu keeps in the dorm come from?"

"I never ask."

He flicked the cigarette ash out the car window, then turned back and stared directly at Lin Yan.

"I only have one question."

"Please speak."

"Are you even human?"

Lin Yan was stunned for a moment.

He instinctively wanted to say something pointless, but as the words were about to come out, he saw Zhao Jianguo's eyes.

He wasn't joking.

There was no prudence, no probing, only a deep and old weariness.

It's like someone who has waited so long, finally reaching this moment, but is unsure which answer they will hear.

"Yes, that's me," Lin Yan said.

Zhao Jianguo continued to stare at him.

Lin Yan was so engrossed in watching that she was considering asking for help in a matchmaking group.

Suddenly, Zhao Jianguo reached out and grabbed Lin Yan's shoulder with such force that it felt like he was going to crush his bones.

Lin Yan winced in pain, but did not flinch.

Zhao Jianguo looked at him for a while, then let go of his hand and leaned back in his seat.

"The day you change, the day you stop being human, I will deal with you myself."

"Captain Zhao, are you trying to reassure me or scare me with those words?"

Zhao Jianguo ignored him and continued talking to himself.

"You young people."

"I think I'm tough, I think I can handle it."

"If you feel that you've dealt with those bizarre things a few times and can still walk out standing up, then you're the protagonist."

His voice faded.

"I've met the protagonist. The human sleuth from Jiangcheng twenty years ago was named by my master."

"It's sealed off, but half of its body is rotting."

"In his final days, his bedsores festered into his flesh. I turned him over every day, and every time I turned him over, he would be in pain all night."

"But that day he smiled at me from his hospital bed and said, 'Jianguo, look, we won.'"

Lin Yan fell silent.

"This is my master. He did this for twenty years without changing. He was still human until his death."

Zhao Jianguo stubbed out his cigarette in the car's ashtray.

"So I don't care about your background, your origins, or what connections you have or what kind of people you know."

"I only care about the final step. Two years later, three years later, ten years later, will you still be human?"

The carriage was filled with the smell of smoke.

"As long as you are still human, you can still stand here with me."

"What trouble have you gotten yourself into? I'll take the blame."

"What kind of weird stuff did you recruit? I'll approve the funding for you to make it happen."

"Whatever you need, as long as the bureau's warehouse has it, I'll give you the necessary approval."

Even if you cause a huge hole in the sky, I'll fix it for you.

"If you change."

He paused for a moment.

"There can only be one person left in this car."

Lin Yan looked at Zhao Jianguo in the rearview mirror.

Zhao Jianguo was looking at the old red brick wall outside the windshield.

A few withered grasses grew in the cracks between the bricks, rustling softly in the night wind.

For some reason, Lin Yan suddenly remembered what Saya had said to him when she left.

"Don't send it next time."

"You'll get used to it."

Lin Yan didn't make any promises like "I won't change".

Team Leader Zhao doesn't need to listen to that.

Zhao Jianguo put the lighter in his pocket and restarted the car.

"Go back and write a report, three thousand words."

"Team Leader Zhao..."

"Add another five hundred, and write about how you managed to eat a meal that nearly wiped out the entire restaurant."

The car reversed out of the alley and onto the main road with streetlights.

Lin Yan sat in the back seat, watching the streetlights rushing past the window one by one.

He was thinking about the moment he said "I am a human being".

He hadn't made any preparations, but he could sense that if he had hesitated for even a moment just now...

Even if it's just for a moment.

Team Leader Zhao could really crush his bones.

Lin Yan leaned back in the back seat and suddenly smiled.