Death Progress Bar

rovided by Shi Jin, as a basis.
It turned out to be the correct decision because, after some backtracking, they discovered where Wei Ming had taken the child, who was indeed Yun Jin: to his parents.

Wei Ming’s parents probably noticed his abnormality and had some suspicions about the child, so after he left, they secretly put the baby in a dumpster.
Later, when the police visited them during the investigation, they simply said that Wei Ming broke off all relations with them years ago and they didn’t know anything.

Thus concluded the second part of the investigation report.
It was confirmed that Jian Jinwen and Yun Jin were brother and sister, and that the original ‘Shi Jin’ should call Jian Jinwen uncle.

Shi Jin’s mood was extremely complicated.
He hadn’t thought that the truth of Jian Jinwen and Yun Jin’s origins would be like that; not even the screenwriter of a third-rate TV drama would dare to write such a plot.

“Would you like to drink something?” Lian Jun asked in a timely interruption.

Shi Jin cast him a sideways glance and shook his head.
He exhaled, opened his mouth to speak but closed it again and, having adjusted his mood, moved on to the last part of the file.

It was some very miscellaneous material: there was some information about the non-profit organization ‘Hope’ that funded Jian Jinwen’s treatment in the hospital overseas, some details about Xu Chuan, and there were also short investigation reports on the two orphanages Yun Jin lived in… In short, this was where the investigation team had included all the other information that they could find out that Shi Jin might want to know.

Shi Jin skimmed through it, and found that the non-profit organization really did have something to do with Shi Xingrui, just as he had guessed.
Even the “good person”, the orphan who Jian Jinwen had helped and who applied for a patient assistance fund in Jian Jinwen’s name to help him in turn, was someone Shi Xingrui arranged.

Not only that—even the hospital in the foreign country that Jian Jinwen was transferred to could be considered Shi Xingrui’s.
Xu Chuan, the organization’s “representative”, had already been working for Shi Xingrui for a long time by that point.

Jian Chenghua believed that after Jian Jinwen moved to the new hospital, Shi Xingrui had no way to see him, but that was a big mistake—that hospital was a “golden house” Shi Xingrui had set up specially for Jian Jinwen.
As long as Jian Jinwen was living there, Shi Xingrui would know everything he did and every detail of his condition.

Not surprisingly, the small-town orphanage that Yun Jin was transferred to had also been funded by Shi Xingrui.
Without knowing it, both the brother and the sister were kept in Shi Xingrui’s “golden houses”.

What a perverted desire to control.

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Shi Jin frowned deeply.
Pressing down the urge to shout abuse at Shi Xingrui, he moved on to the last page of the file.

Here, the report mentioned a very surprising thing: Xu Jie and Xu Chuan were actually relatives.
Though their relationship wasn’t close and the elders of their family did not maintain any contact, the two were blood relatives.

Shi Jin was shocked when he saw this.

Xu Chuan and Xu Jie are relatives? This… Did Shi Xingrui know about this? Xu Chuan was Shi Xingrui’s confidant, and even participated in Shi Xingrui’s secret plan to help Jian Jinwen.
If Xu Chuan and Xu Jie are relatives—if, perhaps, they have always been in contact—then it was possible for Xu Jie to know everything Shi Xingrui did, wasn’t it? Did Xu Jie know Shi Xingrui through Xu Chuan, and come to work in Ruixing Corporation thanks to his help?

Not only that—he remembered that Xu Chuan had been bought by Xu Tianhua before.
Xu Tianhua used to be Ruixing’s deputy chairman and Shi Weichong’s opponent, contending for the control of Ruixing.
Xu Jie was Shi Weichong’s mother…

His heart suddenly sinking, he thought of a possibility—maybe Xu Chuan was never bought by Xu Tianhua but under Xu Jie’s suggestion, he pretended to join Xu Tianhua? And then, he took the opportunity to covertly work against Xu Tianhua, helping Xu Jie to secure Shi Weichong’s position as Ruixing’s chairman?

If that was the case, then when Xu Chuan hired Werewolf to try to kidnap the original ‘Shi Jin’, was it on Xu Jie’s instructions, not Xu Tianhua’s? And Xu Tianhua really didn’t know about the kidnapping, but was just used as a fall guy?

He recalled that in fact, during the whole investigation and trial, Xu Tianhua never admitted to hiring anyone to kidnap and hurt ‘Shi Jin’.
Everyone was certain that he was the behind-the-scenes mastermind because the money Xu Chuan used to pay the deposit to Werewolf came from Xu Tianhua’s secret account.
However, if one thought about it, Xu Chuan was a renowned lawyer with many years of experience; if he wanted to tamper with Xu Tianhua’s secret account, it would be as easy as pie.

Lian Jun saw Shi Jin’s expression getting worse and worse, and couldn’t hold back from reaching out to touch him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.

Shi Jin emerged from the quagmire of his various more or less plausible speculations, and said, his mouth as dry as paper, “I suspect… Xu Chuan and Xu Jie have always been colluding.
The person who wanted Werewolf to kidnap me may not have been Xu Tianhua at all, but Xu Jie.
Do you remember? The request was for them to disfigure me and cut off my fingers; to kill me, but only after I’ve been tortured for long enough time.
These demands clearly indicate a personal grudge and profound hatred, but there was no deep enmity between me and Xu Tianhua.
If he wanted to get rid of me for the sake of his interests, the best way was to ask Werewolf to kill me right after kidnapping me—after all, the longer things dragged on, the greater the risk for him, and yet the request was to ‘torture me’… Why didn’t I notice that something about it wasn’t right?”

Lian Jun, whose face looked progressively colder the longer Shi Jin spoke, soon regained control over his expression and patted the teenager’s back to soothe him.
“I’ve sent people to watch Xu Jie a long time ago.
They will notify me the moment she makes any strange moves, so don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of her, I’m just trying to figure something out,” Shi Jin replied.
As he recalled Xu Chuan’s strange attitude when they met after the lawyer was arrested, and the man silently mouthing a warning to him to run, the questions in his heart multiplied.
He turned to look at Lian Jun and said solemnly, “I want to meet with Xu Chuan as soon as possible.”

Lian Jun met his gaze and nodded, though inwardly he was somewhat reluctant.
“Okay, I will get someone to arrange it.”

Lian Jun was extremely efficient—he arranged for Shi Jin to fly to M province later that same day.

“I’ll let Gua Two and Gua Five go with you,” Lian Jun said, helping Shi Jin pack his luggage.
“The temperature in M province is hotter than that in B City.
When you get there, take care of yourself, don’t get heatstroke.”

Shi Jin, who was immersed in analyzing the plot of the original novel, returned to himself.
Seeing his boyfriend acting like a “virtuous wife”, he blinked, then leaned over and hugged him from behind.
“I’ll come back as soon as possible.
Remember to eat properly while I’m not here.”

“I know.” Lian Jun put down his clothes and gave him a sideways glance.
“Can’t bear to part with me?” he couldn’t resist asking.

“Of course I can’t bear it,” the younger man answered, not hiding his emotions at all.
Relaxing his body, he hung onto him, saying, “We just had our first official date, now it’s obviously supposed to be our honeymoon period…”

Lian Jun reached out to turn Shi Jin’s face towards him and kissed him.

The two let the pink bubbles fly for a while.
Eventually, Lian Jun calmed down first.
After helping Shi Jin finish packing up, he personally sent him out on the road.

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“Call me if there are any problems,” Lian Jun said when Shi Jin got in the car.

Shi Jin nodded through the open window, then urged, “Hurry up and go back in.
It’s too hot outside, you shouldn’t stay in the sun for too long.”

Lian Jun moved his wheelchair back a little, retreating into the shadow by the door.
There he stopped again, making it clear that he was going to watch him leave.

Sighing inwardly, Shi Jin waved farewell at him again, then raised the window.
“Let’s go,” he said to Gua Five, who was driving.

The car started and slowly drove away from the club.
Lian Jun watched it leave, only looking away when it could no longer be seen.
His expression turning cold, he commanded Gua One standing next to him, “Keep an eye on Xu Jie and investigate her personal relationships in detail, don’t let go of anyone suspicious.”

Gua One acknowledged the order and pushed him back into the club.

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While the car was on the way to the airport, Shi Jin took out his tablet.
However, this time he didn’t play mahjong but pulled up all the investigation reports, shrunk the windows down, and lined them up on the screen.

Gua Two’s gaze swept over the tablet but seeing the densely packed words, he hurriedly looked away.
“What are you doing, trying to hurt your eyes? The police academy has requirements for eyesight, you know.”

“I know, I’m not going to hurt my eyes.” Shi Jin tapped on one of the opened files to enlarge it, highlighted one of the paragraphs, and took a pen and a notebook from his bag.

Gua Two raised his eyebrows.
“Are you doing homework? Here?”

“No, I want to work out the timeline,” the teenager replied, writing down the date when Xu Jie and Shi Xingrui first met.

When he saw Shi Xingrui’s name in Shi Jin’s notebook, Gua Two shut up, putting away all thoughts of teasing him.
He moved further to the side, leaned back in the seat, and closed his eyes to rest them.

However, Shi Jin’s whole attention was focused on the information in front of him, and he hadn’t noticed his thoughtfulness at all.

After discovering that Xu Chuan and Xu Jie might be working together, he went over the original plot again with a fine-toothed comb.
He found that if he put Xu Jie in the identity of the unknown mastermind, then all the things that had puzzled him about what happened to the original ‘Shi Jin’, as well as the inexplicable rise and fall of the progress bar, could be reasonably explained.

If the two really colluded, then in order to be able to pry open Xu Chuan’s mouth, Shi Jin had to be fully prepared.
He had to grasp the information completely, learn even the tiniest details by heart, so he could catch the man off guard and get the whole truth out of him.

Translator’s Notes:

“…The truth was more clichéd than he expected” – the word used here is ‘dog blood’ (狗血 gǒuxiě).
It’s usually used to describe a story or plot point that is ‘nonsensical, exaggerated, inconceivable, clumsy or clichéd (to the point it has become farcical and somewhat amusing)’. You’ve probably already met with this term since it’s pretty popular in Chinese.
I took the definition from Wiktionary because it was the most concise one; if you do some googling you’ll find more extensive explanations, along with some speculations on how the term came to be (there’s more than one theory). “That hospital was a ‘golden house’ Shi Xingrui had set up specially for Jian Jinwen” – fig.
‘a golden house to keep one’s mistress (idiom); a magnificent house built for a beloved woman’.
(Source)

Translator: Eques
Editor: Con