S1 Book 7 Prologue +
You are me.
I am you.
From birth, we have had identical faces, nearly identical existences.
But why are we unable to act normally as ourselves?
The mirror reflects two people, not one.
When struck by light, the darkness spreads to become many.
And so, we are not at all the same.
The pages of his memory flipped backwards.
This had happened nearly twenty years ago.
“I’m pregnant.”
The girl that he had held a fairly good relationship with told him on the day of the graduation ceremony, “My family will beat me to death, please save me.”
The girl could be called a goddess that all the boys in the school yearned for. She was gentle, clever, and beautiful. As long as she smiled, crowd after crowd of boys would be willing to do anything for her. But back then, this probably did not include him.
She stood before him and said, “Please, I beg of you.”
Thus, he nodded.
“Let’s get married.”
His memory advanced a few more years.
His brother had entered the regional bureau after graduating from the police academy. He then also passed the specialised examination and began to walk on the same career path.
His beautiful wife and lively boy lived in a small apartment he had bought on a loan. His wife worked at home while raising the child, and they waited for him to come home every day.
He also learned various things about managing a household so as not to burden her more. Every day, he would ask how to cook the fish or other food so that it tasted delicious. All the aunties in the station would praise him with wide eyes, saying that he was a good husband.
All his colleagues were envious of their family. Even his brother would typically worm his way into their home when he had nothing to do, playing with the young child and enjoying the feeling of warmth.
They were twins with the same face. Sometimes, his own child would call his younger brother “dad”, calling himself “uncle”.
He had always believed that, aside from his family, his brother was the most important to him. His beautiful wife also thought the same, so the relationship between all of them had always been exceptionally close.
Until one day, he brought his wife and child out for the holiday after a rare chance for him to take an extended vacation. Halfway through the trip, their car’s brakes started to fail. And it just so happened that an uncontrolled, illegal trailer crashed into them right at that moment. And what was more misfortunatewas that the ambulance and emergency rescue members had been stuck in a traffic jam caused by the small car accident.
His wife, trapped inside the car, stubbornly pushed the small child out of the shattered and distorted car window. Then, she died on the spot from blood loss before the ambulance could arrive.
Since then, his leg could not endure running for long distances, and the vision in one of his eyes had dropped by half. As a result, he was transferred to the administrative group.
This was already a matter from very long ago.
It was possible that the child could barely remember it anymore.
He still had a slight impression of it.
That day, the situation had been like this:
It was the same as usual, nothing out of place. At a bit past 6 AM, the fried egg was already sizzling in the frying pan, and the air was filled with the aroma of bread, as well as the sounds of the news report coming from the television.
There was nothing different, a completely typical scene.
When he came downstairs, he saw the figure in the kitchen busy taking care of the whole family’s breakfast as usual. The hot food was steaming on the stove, almost finished.
Every day typically started like this before passing.
It was the everyday lifestyle that he could not be more familiar with.
Yu Yin looked at the house that he had lived in since he was young. Although it was already over ten years old, it was still as clean as if it were brand new as a result of the house owner’s tidying up. Every object inside the house was organised neatly, and there was not even the slightest trace of dust to be seen.
In the past, they had originally lived as a family like this. A family of three, a simple yet comforting household just like many others. There was nothing special or outstanding about it.
The already blurry image of the mother in his memory was a beautiful woman who was also skilled at culinary arts. She had long, naturally curly hair that flashed a gorgeous, jet-black luster whenever it rippled. He would often sit in the kitchen chair, looking up at the slim back using various cooking utensils, causing the bundled-up hair to move with the body as if it was dancing. Then there was that unforgettable aroma, sometimes of cake, sometimes of candy.
This was a memory from so long ago that he had nearly forgotten it. That home had later been replaced by this new one. A yellowing photo, along with his childhood times, now took up only a twenty square centimeter area on the desk.
“Morning.”
Yu Yin gave a huge yawn as he sleepily tugged at his fluffy and messy hair. He circled into the kitchen to open the refrigerator in search of something to drink.
The first abnormality he had seen that morning was that the person standing in the kitchen was not the one that usually stood there. So when he turned around while drinking some milk, he nearly spat it all out from his mouth.
“Un-uncle?” He was awake, completely awake now.
Is there anything more horrifying than this person being here so early in the morning to make breakfast?
“Don’t drink something cold on an empty stomach first thing in the morning.” The reason he immediately recognised the chef as his dad was because his uncle’s way of giving advice definitely included a tray being slammed down onto his head instead of something so gentle. Yu Yin exhaled as he scanned the special clothes his old man was wearing today: a T-shirt and jeans. There were even rips that had come from chasing a criminal one time. These were clothes that belonged to someone else, not the clothing his dad usually wore.
“Did Uncle get into trouble again and ask you to get scolded in his place?” Yu Yin sniggered as he surveyed the person whose inside clearly did not match their outside. Sometimes, such things did happen.
After taking off his glasses and switching them for contacts, and styling the hair up a bit, he was almost identical to his twin brother. If he did not speak, even Yu Yin, his own son, would sometimes not be able to clearly tell who was his birth father.
There was pretty much only one reason for his dad changing appearances like this: when Yu Xia did something to cause the higher-ups to summon him for a scolding, but he had a task that he had to do no matter what. That was when such a situation would happen.
When Yu Xia went to see his boss, Yu Tong would substitute for him in his task.
When Yu Tong went to see his boss, Yu Xia would do his assignments as usual.
As for knowing who was filling out which vacancy, nobody would ever know. Even Yu Xia’s group members, who had followed Yu Xia for so many years, could not tell them apart.
The twin brothers matched so perfectly and meticulously that it far surpassed one’s judging abilities.
Although their colleagues knew that was not allowed, they mostly just turned a blind eye. Sometimes, Jiu Shen would even unctuously buy some fruits and wave them before their boss, saying that they wanted to visit the sick patient in the Yu household, but the moment the boss left, he would peel the fruits and blend them into a sweet juice.
This was a secret that everyone knew about.
“You’ll be late, you still need to go get your things ready.”
Yu Tong looked at his chuckling son and smiled very warmly. However, his smile also held the message: “If you are late, you’re dead”.
The next second, Yu Yin immediately dashed out of the kitchen.
After the mother had died, they had been living in such a way.
Oh right, it seems that on a day just like this, a fourth member joined the family.
It had been on a day that was both identical and very different from the usual.
He had opened his eyes, waking up from a dream, and recalled some things.
In the middle of the night, he would occasionally hear the sirens of an ambulance whiz past his window. A typical person would at most grumble a bit while tossing around before going back to sleep. But ever since he had started to mature, he had learned to guess if that car had someone he knew, or someone involved in a case. Sometimes, it would keep him up for the entire night.
Just like that, the sky had brightened.
“Coming up next: how long has it been since you last went out to enjoy yourself? Now that the storm has passed, the eastern tourist district is gradually reopening…”
Since it was still morning time, not many people were gathered in the conference room. There were twenty chairs spread out around the large and long table, all currently empty. The bulletin board off to the side was filled with papers, photos, printed images, and some written notes about things everyone needed to pay attention to.
They were all used to skimming over the board once whenever they entered the station. Every day, there was new data stuck on it and old ones removed. These kinds of publicly displayed matters were never too serious, and a portion of the board was simply listed names of habitual thieves.
He stood there, imprinting all the information into his brain. After completing his usual morning work, he lined up the documents in his hands and decided to walk back to his own office to carefully organise them.
“You’re going to get grilled this time, Boss.”
Jiu Shen walked in with a backpack, half a digestive biscuit in his mouth, and immediately saw the person that had arrived so early in the morning. Surprisingly, he was in the mood to actually walk over and chat. “I heard the higher-ups wanted to reprimand you today?”
“If you have enough time to loiter around, you’d better hand over the things you owe me this instant. Or else the one that’ll be grilled is you,” Yu Xia warned without shifting his gaze from the newest print-out.
“Ack—” Jiu Shen nearly choked on his biscuit as he quickly nodded. “Good luck.”
Everyone around here knew that Yu Xia was one of the most highly supported officers over the past few years. His success rate for solving cases was high, he had a strong working ability, and even invested more effort and devotion into leading his group than others did.
However, to the higher-ups, he was also one of the people with the highest “rate” of screw-ups.
In the very beginning, Yu Xia had originally possessed very positive future prospects based on his former achievements and his diligent attitude. Theoretically speaking, he should have already been promoted or changed to a more liberal position long ago, leaving the frontline work to a young junior and retreating over to a comfortable office area. However, after all these years, even after his juniors had all been promoted, he had not gone up in the slightest.
A very long time ago, during a certain year, everyone suddenly discovered that he did not show any respect. He had insisted on thoroughly investigating to the end a case involving a specific legislative representative that had gotten a kickback from a colluding merchant and thus indirectly harmed an entire family to their deaths. The matter had caused an extremely serious uproar that became impossible to resolve.
This incident had given rise to a perilous situation, so everyone had been kept on very tight watches for a long time, before after enough time passed and the matter gradually faded out. But ever since then, various parties had marked Yu Xia as a top troublemaker. Some individuals even refused to help with any cases that Yu Xia was involved with, afraid of offending others because of him.
However, circling back to his work ethic, his dazzling achievements were just as impossible to overlook. While quite a few people wanted to completely force Yu Xia out of this place so that he could not block them out, there were also quite a few people that strove to protect him as well.
Yu Xia didn’t really remember much anymore. He just knew that he had likely helped some people out on some cases, which provided a pretext for those figures to secretly reciprocate.
Aside from this, those who disliked Yu Xia all had at least a bit of fear of unknown repercussions in their hearts as well. After all, one could not be safe forever; if one day, someone tried to harm them, the first thing they would do would probably be to seek for help from that unyielding police officer that could search out all possible clues as opposed to an empty flatterer that could spend forever looking around and still find nothing.
As a result, this person embroiled in conflicts impossible to sort out remained in the same position. He continued to work with his own group without any kind of promotion or reward. Although the people that worked together with him understood this was unfair, they had no way of speaking up and no space to fight back.
Time continued to slowly drag on like this.
However, Yu Xia himself did not care about anything like promotions. His current work matched him well, and so he would not reject this path of survival that others had just barely forced onto him. He continued to capture people and stir up trouble, never choosing anything else aside from going down the path that he firmly believed in.
He undoubtedly preferred field work over sitting inside an office, even if many people tried to curse him and say he would one day get shot at. Risk was inevitable; besides, it was not like he had never been shot before.
After several long years of breaking into the group, Yu Xia’s direct superiors had all tempered their guts. Perhaps because Yu Tong had later come into the middle of the picture as well, this capable subordinate became more cunning and slightly more restrained. However, when something was really overstepped its boundaries beyond what Yu Xia could tolerate, it was inevitable for him to land in the situation he was in today.
“Here are the test results from that important person’s son who was taking drugs…” Jiu Shen secretly stuffed the newest report into Yu Xia’s hands, and then said in a low voice from where he quietly stood behind Yu Xia for support. “Boss, do you want me to help you call Xiao Wu?”
Xiao Wu was a reporter they were acquainted with. He was a decently just person who had helped the police find a few clues to solve a case a few years ago. He had also used his articles to ingeniously draw out the perpetrator. As a result, they had a decent friendship, and they would typically help each other out when needed.
“No need, I have a way to deal with him.” Yu Xia accepted the report from Jiu Shen and nodded to indicate that he obviously knew Jiu Shen had rushed out here to work overtime in order to offer this possible bargaining chip to reverse the tables.
“Thanks.”
The situation had been like this:
These were circumstances that would occasionally happen in successive incidents. A few days ago, someone reported a female corpse inside a motel room. After investigating, it was discovered that the person involved was a certain legislative official’s son. Without caring about how influential the other party was, Yu Xia first gave the uncooperative person wanting to destroy the evidence a good beating. Logically, this then angered the official, and the incident broiled into an irremediable mess.
It was to the point where the entire station knew of it. Although this was only one of many troubles Yu Xia had stirred, this seemed to have affected the promotions of the higher levels, so a heavy pressure bore back down on Yu Xia’s direct superiors, who were once again discomforted. As a result, they had instructed him to go to the office for a “discussion” this morning.
This was precisely also the why Jiu Shen had appeared here this morning instead of helping to arrange a blockade like he was supposed to.
He distinctly remembered that there seemed to be some very important work today…
“It’s still best if you be careful, Boss. Everyone is saying that guy has been looking for a bunch of people to go up against you.”
Although Jiu Shen knew that Yu Xia more or less knew this, he still could not help but give a reminder out of unease.
“I’ll contently wait for him.” Of course, Yu Xia knew that the other person would definitely fight him. He looked at his colleague with a somewhat terrifying smile.
Jiu Shen inwardly offered a silent tribute to the hired thugs that would come to pick a fight. Gaze remaining locked onto the side of Yu Xia’s face, Jiu Shen tossed the bag in his hand into the trash can and feigned idleness as he said, “Oh right, Boss, didn’t you have to head out by nine…” He glanced at his watch that was pointing at 8:30. Who knew how much time it would take to get to the site?
“Someone went over first. If the old many doesn’t appear within the next five minutes, I’m going to head out as planned.” After spitting out this reply, Yu Xia placed the object of Jiu Shen’s good will inside the folder. “If you don’t have anything to do, go back to work!”
Jiu Shen lowered his head and pointed at the bulletin board. “I’ll go once I finish reading this.”
Yu Xia grunted in reply and turned to walk towards the stairs.
Jiu Shen’s eyes gave a practiced scan over the papers stuck on the board without most of it actually staying inside his mind. His gaze then stopped on an A4 paper that had been there for a long time. It had a figure captured from a security camera that was slightly blurry. This was a habitual convenience store robber, a very young male who looked to be around his twenties. Because he wore a baseball cap, it was impossible to discern his features. Jiu Shen recalled that this person seemed to steal literature and food every time, the usual everyday products.
The reason this case had recently been raised again was because he had begun to advance into residences. A few days ago, a complex’s security camera caught his figure stealing, and they were currently searching for him.
However, this was not within his responsibilities scope. His job was analysis support for major cases. He remembered that another group should have been in charge of this case.
But for some unknown reason, Jiu Shen was curious about this person. After all, the first time this guy had been accused of criminal offense had been two years ago, and yet up until today they still had not managed to capture him. It was undoubtedly not a simple task.
In actuality, it wasn’t like they had no suspects to choose from. However, after investigating the case and finding discrepancies in either time or location for each name on the list, they all got eliminated one after another, and there was still nobody who knew the person’s identity. The only clue was the blurry, indiscernible face on this paper.
Although Jiu Shen was very intrigued, it was not to the point where he would automatically ask to deal with someone else’s case. Thus, he simply shrugged, hoping that one of his colleagues would capture this mysterious thief sooner than later to satisfy his curiousity.
While half in a daze, a certain tune suddenly rang out. Jiu Shen then realised that it was his own cellphone going off.
“This is Jiu Shen—” What kind of person would feel like calling me at this kind of time? He eyed his watch; it was nearly 9 AM.
“Mm, I can head over now. The location is…” As Jiu Shen listened to the somewhat alarmed voice on the other end, his expression grew paler and paler as well. “Wait, wait a minute…that’s impossible. Boss was just…” He stared at where the person had previously been standing, the rest of his words stuck in his throat.
Shouts came from the other end of the phone.
His mind went blank, unable to process what the other person was shouting about. All he could register were the loud, constantly blaring sirens and the sound of an ambulance on the other end.
***
“Time.”
At 8:10 AM, they verified their cursor hands’ placement and the numbers.
“Who forgot to replace my watch’s battery again? You’d better go up and get me a new one right now, or else you’re dead.” The minute he finished this declaration, the sounds of several people softly chuckling came from both around him and his earpiece.
Yu Xia studied the small apartment building nearby from his seat inside the car.
Based on external appearance alone, it was an extremely normal place. The somewhat aged apartment building had homes from around twenty years ago or more. The paint on the outer walls had at some point been redone. Although the building could not be said to seem too old, it could not be called new either. There were still “For Rent” signs stuck on the rusted apartment mailboxes.
There were a few similar apartment buildings nearby, likely built from around the same time, with a space about the size of one car in between each one. Some people had already begun to use some areas to illegally store junk.
He had been keeping an eye on this apartment building for three months now.
Yu Xia tapped the watch on his wrist and counted the seconds and minutes that passed by. The opponent was extremely cunning, to the point where they had never dared to act blindly. Only after spending three months of time had they finally been able to besiege this place. In his opinion, this was a sign of good luck — they had been pursuing this person for at least a year already, so waiting for three months counted as short in comparison.
When Yu Xia thought of how they would be able to throw a punch at their target soon, Yu Xia licked his lips in a somewhat better mood.
“Ah Yin’s still not done even though he’s so close?” The person sitting in the driver’s seat glanced at the rearview mirror, not seeing their companion who had run off to the nearest toilet because of a stomachache.
Yu Xia glanced at the other person before adjusting his walkie-talkie and ominously declaring, “Liao Yi Ma, if you don’t appear in the next two minutes, I’ll personally stuff you into the septic tank! Starting from now!”
His colleagues who were preparing to reload instantly spurted into laughter in unplanned harmony.
An anguished wail came from the earpiece, causing another round of laughter.
Yu Xia kept an eye on the time, somewhat out of it as he thought about what would happen at 9:00. As a result, when a certain person ran over in a panic and knocked on the car window, he did not notice immediately. The person next to him patted him to get his attention.
When the car window was rolled down, it revealed a familiar face sporting an extremely embarrassed smile.
“I’m sorry, Ah Xia. The soy milk this morning was definitely spoiled…” That simple and honest smile had never changed over the years. Liao Yi Ma, who had graduated and entered the police force at nearly the same time as Yu Xia, scratched his head with the anxious panic still on his face.
“From now on, you’re forbidden from drinking soy milk during work!”
It was an unreasonable demand, but the other officer maintained his smile, having long since gotten used to Yu Xia’s impulsive personality. “Then I’ll go back first to my spot and stay there…”
“Where is your watch?” Yu Xia suddenly interrupted the other’s words when noticing that the person’s wrist was missing something.
“Huh? I probably forgot it at the shop where I just borrowed their bathroom.” The officer hurriedly searched himself, but did not find anything and began to feel nervous.
As the unit’s captain, Yu Xia greatly valued watching the time. Everyone that knew him for long enough even knew that his watch was always fifteen minutes faster, and he only adjusted it back whenever carrying out a task. He typically did not care if anyone else wore watches or not, but he very strictly demanded for them to carry a watch while working, especially in situations like this one.
Of course, the other officer knew of this as well. Even after searching his body, he still did not find the watch. As a result, cold sweat broke out on his back.
Definitely screwed. These were the words that immediately appeared in his mind.
But unexpectedly, Yu Xia did not directly punch him. Instead, a watch was slapped onto his face. “You’d better scram back to your position this instant. I’ll teach you a lesson later!”
The police officer pulled the watch off from his face to discover that it was the one that Yu Xia normally wore. However, there seemed to be a slight problem with it. Yu Xia was wearing another type of design on his wrist.
“If I wasn’t going to bring it for repairs after work today, you would definitely be dead right now.” Yu Xia gave one final warning.
The officer quickly thanked him in response, with the feeling that he had managed to escape the disaster today. He grabbed the watch and rushed back to the apartment…his position was inside the small complex. They had emptied out a storage space underneath the building’s stairwell this morning to use as a temporary stakeout. The only regret he felt towards it was that it did not have a bathroom, and it was a bit cramped for their group of two.
After watching everyone return to their positions, Yu Xia continued to count the time.
He was still waiting.
According to the intelligence they had gathered during this period, this person would have a rendezvous with another group of people after 9:00 today. That scheduled time was also their best chance to take action.
And so, he continued to wait.
As the minutes and seconds passed, Yu Xia abruptly realised after the fourth time that there were no sounds of reports that he was supposed to receive from the apartment location.
He attempted to shout for them a few times, with no response. This made him realise that there was truly something wrong.
Everyone arranged in position began to feel that a problem may have occurred. However, the apartment was quiet, and it did not seem like anything had happened. In fact, they could not hear a single noise.
“Stay in position and wait for further command.” After ordering the others to remain in their locations, Yu Xia cautiously approached the apartment building.
Nearly everyone focused their attentions at the building.
The hands [of the clock] never stopped advancing.
Until, the sound of a gunshot coming from the roof of the apartment building shattered the eerily quiet atmosphere, shocking almost everyone present. In that moment, the original plans could no longer be executed. Most of the police force immediately raced towards the building using the arranged route, while others remained in a circle outside.
Without even giving them much time to breathe, everyone watched something sway and fall down from the rooftop of the old, eight-floor building complex before they could even charge inside. Then, two large, black objects fell from above, directly crashing into the top of the small car below with an explosive bang. This immediately shook everyone out of their shocked dazes.
Blood slowly slid down from the top of the car, twisting around like silk and eating its way into the shattered windows of the now deformed car. The broken shards and scarlet colour mixed together.
One person had fallen to the ground face-first, his entire head split apart after striking the ground in an extremely gruesome fashion. His body was completely twisted into unnatural angles, and it showed no traces of movement. Before the police rushed forwards, all he managed to do was twitch a few more times before finally coming to a peace.
The other person had fallen onto the car roof, with face pointing upwards. Like a puppet whose strings had snapped, he was unable to support himself, and he could no longer feel the broken shards cutting into his body or the large amount of blood oozing out. His wide eyes slowly lost their light, and they finally closed once he lost consciousness.
There is no wind today – good weather for capturing people.
These were the words Yu Xia had told the others before they had headed out.
“Holy shit!” The first one to race over to the scene was the driver that had been sitting next to Yu Xia earlier. He stared in horror at the scene that should not have unfolded before him. As he watched his boss’s hand still stubbornly gripped onto the criminal’s arm slowly lose its strength, the other person slid down with a thud as the flesh with deep imprints of a hand dropped into a pool of someone’s blood. “My, my…shit…ambulance! Hurry up and call the ambulance! Someone fucking call the ambulance right now!” Right now, his shouts sounded like a mosquito’s buzz to his own ears, the constant noise seemingly coming from far away.
The area around the old apartment building burst into action.
The driver never moved, unable to go forward and confirm if his boss was alive or not, and also unable to move his feet to step onto the unceasing drops of blood falling from the person he knew.
He remained in that same spot until he recognised that the watch on Yu Xia’s wrist actually should have belonged to his older twin brother. There had been a year when the comrades at the station had combined money to buy a pair of very expensive watches that had been super resistant to water, being dropped, or being struck, as a birthday present. Yu Xia had taken quite a fancy to it, so he never removed it aside from when he sent it for maintenance.
Yu Xia, who they were all frightened of but also very much respected, was now lying atop the caved in roof of the car. The arm wearing somebody else’s watch had been split open from the force’s impact.
Dark blood began to surround his body.
This was the first time the driver had ever felt that their former leader was actually not as looming of a figure as they imagined.
Consequently, the ambulance arrived.
That was the only thing unusual that morning.
***
Suddenly, time passed quickly.
Yu Yin yawned as he looked around at the people-packed dining hall and decided to postpone his lunchtime. After all, the amount of people would decrease a lot after an hour once lunch break ended. There was no need to stay here and get frustrated by squeezing into crowds.
The school convenience store was currently restocking its shelves after having all of its items cleared ages ago. However, if he wasn’t dying of hunger, he did not really want to choose a microwave meal.
With the change I have on me right now, I should be able to get a few chocoballs or something…
“Rice omelette.”
A slightly warm lunchbox was passed over to him from behind. Yu Yin, who had been thinking about how to deal with his stomach, jumped in shock and hurriedly looked backwards.
“Or do you like curry rice more?” Yi Tai had arrived at some point and was standing behind him, his arms raised to show a large bag of lunchboxes hanging down. There were at least eleven or twelve in total.
“You went out to run errands?” Yu Yin stared at the person in front of him in astonishment.
Because of the pension incident during summer break, he had more or less gotten a bit closer to Yi Tai. Before they had even interacted much, Yu Yin had already known that the other person held great influence over the students. Logically speaking, running errands and buying lunchboxes did not really seem to be something Yi Tai would do…it was very possible that he only had to open his mouth, and there would be people willing to get any kind of lunch for him. So seeing Yi Tai running around buying lunches was something Yu Yin truly found shocking.
As he was thinking this over, the sound of hurried footsteps came from the other side of the hallway, and Ah Fang, who Yu Yin was more closely acquainted with, ran over with an expression of extrem
