Pure Darkness

Chapter 116

As always, I hope you all stay safe, and fine. If you want to do something new or different, maybe think of a way to brighten up someone's day in need of encouragement!

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In this chapter, Bo Jinyan draws a profile of an undercover police officer for Song Kun and uncovers her plans to make this mole reveal itself. Little did Song Kun know that he had other motives related to the masked assassin. .. . All this caused Jian Yao and Bo Jinyan to share some time alone before the action started, which is always fun, especially when they have a small intruder.

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Song Kun raised his eyes to look at Bo Jinyan with a faint smile.

Bo Jinyan's face still showed an irresistible expression of arrogance and complacency. He said, “Bos, the answer to who that person is, is in your heart.”

Song Kun's eyes glittered slightly, but his expression remained calm.

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However, Bo Jinyan began to speak frankly and confidently, without restraint. “That you threw me this problem shows that you have been hiding suspicions for a while. And you are probably the one who understands these people the most around the world. If you don't know the answer, who knows?”

Song Kun glanced at him and sipped his tea slowly. With a cold expression, he said, “Ah She, I guess you still don't know me enough. I don't like people who talk in circles. ”

Bo Jinyan rubbed her nose for a while and said, “I don't talk in circles. I'd like to tell you that the person who made the final decision is none other than you. Speaking in terms of wisdom and intelligence, it's possible that I'm a little inferior to you, Boss.” Song Kun smiled, but the topic of conversation then turned sharp. “However, watch people, find people, bite people. . . Boss, in this case, snakes are more capable. ”

The courtyard in the afternoon was quiet, with birds flying on the branches; there seemed to be no one else around. Bo Jinyan began to speak with reassuring candor. “You threw me a hot potato. All I know about these people is what I hear about them, which is really nothing. However, this does not confuse me. Although I do not know them, I know the superior of the police officer was — Zhu Tao. I am not as good as others in terms of arson, murder, and looting, but I am the one who fought Zhu Tao up to an inch from our life in Yunnan. What kind of person would she choose to disguise herself with? I think this is the reason why, Boss, you chose me to find the answer to this puzzle.”

Song Kun's eyes twinkled.

Bo Jinyan continued, “Bos, Zhu Tao is unlike any other police officer. He's ambitious, and there's a bit of an evil spirit in him.”

Song Kun listened quietly.

“This is something I have pondered and only come to a conclusion during this period of time. Last month, my men fell into his trap. No outsider knows about this. Back then, some of my brothers had already given up, but he still gave orders for them to be shot dead. He seemed to be upright, but when it came to the critical moment, he had no bottom line. He is as strong as a wolf – otherwise, how could he survive unscathed in the southwest for so long?”

Song Kun remained silent, showing neither his trust nor disbelief. However, he had actually heard that some Smiling Snake people had been shot dead. He did not expect that it would happen because of such a situation.

“There is one more thing that confirms my guess.” Bo Jinyan said, “You said that you have lost some batch of goods*, but there is no sign of police activity. This indicates that Zhu Tao is devising a long-term plan to gain greater profits*. In order to catch you, he was willing to release some small seeds. Zhu Tao was an ambitious person, and sometimes carelessly ignored the principles of policing. At this point, he is no different from you or me, yes. . it's just that he is labeled as a fair and righteous person, so he has to hide it very well.”

*T/N Ding Mo only shows a row of asterisks here. For the purposes of this translation, I will assume they are ‘gong’.

*T/N (fang chang xian diao da yu) – flaming. using long rope to catch big fish.

Hearing this, Song Kun nodded.

Bo Jinyan continued by saying, “Then, this is our breakthrough point! Someone like Zhu Tao, what kind of person would he choose to disguise? Among your trusted aides, how many people they have killed, whether their methods are cruel, whether they use drugs. . . none of this can be used as a criterion to eliminate traitors, because he can pretend very well, pretend to be naughty and out of control, kill people, commit arson. All the things that no undercover police officer dared to do, he did. Because, in the way Zhu Tao does things, as long as you are captured and the Buddha Hand is destroyed, all his petty crimes can be smoothed out. ”

Song Kun looked at Bo Jinyan and did not say anything. This was indeed beyond his expectations.

Bo Jinyan laughed and said, “Also, I speculated that she must have been alone the year she joined you. Wh why? Because Zhu Tao was very careful. The chess piece he buried by your side, which he was able to bury so deeply, shows that this person has extraordinary abilities. He will definitely not bring any help to the Buddha Hand with him, as he cannot be involved by anyone.”

Song Kun inhaled the cigar smoke and said indifferently, “Continue.”

“There are two types of people you can't ignore,” Bo Jinyan said. “The first type, according to the usual methods of undercover police officers, will slowly rise from the bottom. This will hardly arouse suspicion, and your confidence will further increase. Such a personality is more reserved, but if he reveals more about his true self, you won't be able to see who he really is. The other type is someone who joins Buddha’s Hand is a complete job change. He arrives at your side almost instantly as he manages to elegantly in some ways. He's been with you for a relatively longer period of time, his temperament is flamboyant and brash, and no matter what aspect you consider, he's not at all like a police officer. However, because he was so different, he could become a chess piece that Zhu Tao had carefully buried. You must be very careful.”

When he finished speaking, he felt the tea on the table and drank it slowly. Jian Yao looked down, as if concentrating, but what she was thinking was actually the plan that Bo Jinyan had formulated the night before. That night, the two of them snuggled comfortably under the covers. He stuck his lips to his ear and said, lightly, “First, I want to show you the doubts that are in Song Kun's heart — he is the one who knows them the most, he said, and there's a candidate for suspicion. Then, as I guided him step by step through his thoughts, I wanted to instill the presumption in such a way that it was as if I was the one who submitted the candidate.”

“After that, by making the wrong appear right, by confounding the truth with lies, by throwing away this idea of Zhu Tao, step by step, we will tear down his suspicions against this police officer, he said, and direct them to the masked killer.”

“Of course, we can't make something sound too absolute. But, at the very least, we can make him doubt the two people at once. Song Kun was basically suspicious, cautious and ruthless. As long as we can bury this thorn in his heart, the risk will spread when he suspects two people. The police officer will no longer be his only target.

“But . .” Jian Yao said, “this is all just your speculation. How can we find evidence for ‘prove’ that the masked killer was actually ‘police officer’?”

. . . . .

“This is all just your speculation,” Song Kun said slowly. “I can't just arrest someone, identify him as a police officer and kill him, based on your speculation. How will you prove that the person must be a policeman?”

Bo Jinyan smiled slightly. “There is a very easy method.”

——

That night, Song Kun looked excited. He called his trusted aide to play cards upstairs. Only Wen Rong and Bo Jinyan were absent. Wen Rong reportedly made a home visit to a critically ill patient in the mountains. After he said this, Qin Sheng mockingly said, “Wen Rong, this person, is completely overzealous. Among all of us, I think he's a good person.” The others laughed when they heard this, including Song Kun.

Perhaps to distinguish between close and distant relatives, Song Kun did not summon the Smiling Snake. Since he did not mention it, naturally, there was no one else either.

Immediately, the room was filled with cigarette smoke, as well as Gu An's sad laughter, Zhao Kun's low and mockery, and Qin Sheng's gentle speech. Song Kun played a few hands before swapping places with Zheng Chen and standing to one side, smoking his cigar. Not long after, Zheng Chen lost. His face reddened as he was the target of his brothers' jokes.

All this time, Song Kun watched them in silence.

Until another subordinate walked into the room, an unpleasant expression on his face. “Bos.”

Song Kun inhaled a mouthful of smoke. “Speaking.”

The subordinate glanced at the others, but Song Kun said, “You can speak in front of them.”

The movement of everyone around the card table seemed to slow down by several degrees.

The room was very quiet. Not even the sound of cards falling was heard.

Song Kun inhaled another secondhand smoke, then turned off the remaining half of the cigars in the ashtray. With an indifferent expression, he said, “This cigar taste is becoming fainter the longer you suck on it.”

——

In the same twilight, a person puffs half a cigarette proficiently and casually throws half of it at a nearby fence, where it falls into the mud.

Immediately, when the sky had just turned dark, several people stormed into the small building near the inn. After a moment of distraction, the calm returned. The small building also calmed down.

——

It was late at night. The river water murmured, the stars shone faintly, and everything became quieter. The lights in that distant small town were rare, as if they had fallen asleep.

Some gang members leaned against the door of the small hut, smoking and chatting idly. The door is locked securely from the outside with a large padlock. The windows are also tightly closed. The people inside really could not escape.

The interior is very narrow. There are piles of firewood, the soil is moist and cold, and there are cobwebs everywhere – it is the most uncomfortable place. Jian Yao could only curl even tighter into herself; she was basically helpless as her wrists and ankles were tied with rope and she only had a limited range of movements.

Incredibly, at this moment, he heard a lively whistling sound.

He looked suspiciously at Bo Jinyan beside him. His hands and feet had been tied, of course, and his hands were resting on his knees. The light from the small bulb above her head shone on her face, and she looked like she was usually – soft and delicate, with a pure and beautiful temperament.

“Hey,” said Jian Yao, “should you whistle? We can be killed anytime now; shouldn't you be more moody and desperate?”

Bo Jinyan replied, “Because I am smarter than others, I certainly will not have this meaningless gloomy emotion. Someone will definitely come and save us.”

Jian Yao was still a bit anxious. “If he doesn't come?”

“He will definitely come. She couldn't bear to see me die this way.”

Jian Yao was silent for a moment. Then, he cut his ties with the razor he had hidden in his sleeve, and replaced it afterwards. This is a small trick that Fang Qing previously taught him – that criminal investigators definitely have extensive knowledge of ‘information learned’*. He moved to Bo Jinyan and broke his ties as well, then said, “We've been waiting this long, and it's time. Husband, it's dangerous tonight. We have agreed, whatever situation we face, I will protect you.” Bo Jinyan looked up but did not immediately reply.

*T/N (san jiao jiu liu) – refers to the Three Religions (Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism) and the Nine Schools (Confucianism, Daoist, Yin-Yang, Legalist, Logician, Mohist, Political Strategist, etc, Eclectic, Agriculture) . Fig. refers to people of all trades (often derog.)

But, right at this moment, from the corner of his eyes, Jian Yao saw a huge spider crawling towards them. Immediately, a chill ran through his spine and he got up. Unknowingly, he wriggled into Bo Jinyan's arms to hide.

Bo Jinyan asked, “What's up?”

“Ada . . .” Seeing the spider approaching, Jian Yao could barely contain the exclamation. He picked up a piece of firewood and hit the spider. Surprised, it turned around to rush in the other direction.

“Spiders?” Bo Jinyan asked.

Still partly panicked, Jian Yao looked at him and asked, “How do you know?”

Bo Jinyan smiled before replying, “No wonder there are spiders in such an environment. As we walked through the door, I felt several cobwebs on my face. Also, spiders always scare you the most. Thus, it is not difficult to draw conclusions. Has it gone?”

Jian Yao heaved a sigh of relief when she saw that the spider had disappeared. “Lost.”

Jian Yao did not move from her position in Bo Jinyan's arms, and her hands were still tightly clenched in her clothes. Slowly, his heart rate returned to normal. At this point, he heard his soft voice in his ear, saying, “Oh, ‘no matter what situation we face, I am the one who will protect you’. The vow is still valid, but my knight has been defeated by a vicious spider. ” His tone is full of regrets.

After a pause, Jian Yao said, “You shut up.”

——

There were many others who could not sleep that night.

Song Kun was one of them.

In his entire life, he hated being cheated the most. The existence of the police officer was like a thorn piercing his heart. He did not care how many brothers died, how much damage was inflicted, as long as he could find that person. Even more so because that person would fall into his net that night.

This is the tallest building in the small town. Song Kun stood in front of the window, with a sniper rifle in his hand. He also holds a pair of infrared binoculars and wears a pair of headphones. He had a panoramic view of the small wooden hut where the execution was carried out and the surroundings. He had also clearly heard every word spoken by the smiling Snake couple.

Seconds by seconds passed. His fingers were constantly in contact with the sniper rifle, tapping on it.

If he believed that the Smiling Snake was a policeman, then the man would definitely come to the rescue.

He wanted to kill her with his own hands.

Almost midnight.

The usual practice is to kill people confined in small wooden huts in the early hours of the morning, before 3 am, and dump their bodies into the river. That is, it will not be long before the death of the Smiling Snake couple.

The gang members guarding the door and around the small wooden hut all evaporated.

Bo Jinyan and Jian Yao stayed awake and sat quietly.

Until the footsteps of others outside the wooden hut. Then, there was the astonished voice of a gang member asking, “Kakak, why are you here? Is something wrong?”

Jian Yao stood up and walked to the window. Through the gap in the bars, he saw a figure.

He was also dumbfounded.

It was Zheng Chen.