CH 39.1

Fourth Floor (17)

Translated by boilpoil

Edited by boilpoil

“The End of Those Who Walk with Doctor”

Jiang Yiyi leaves his cell, and a prison officer nearby cleaning things up grabs his baton subconsciously.

Jiang Yiyi looks around, and fails to recognise where his destination his. So he turns to the wary prison officer and offers a smile.

Ye Wang, after patching his emotions, returns to the interrogation room.

Jian Si has maintained his posture, remaining unaffected by the rather long solitude.

Ye Wang walks over, looming over him.

Jian Si gives him a glance, before looking away in disinterest.

Ye Wang fakes a smile, and uses his keycard to unlock the electronic lock on his chains.

The heavy chains drop onto the ground with a thump, breaking the silence in the atmosphere.

Jian Si is able to lean back properly into his chair, and he is now massaging his wrists.

Ye Wang sits opposite him, “you can drop the act now. No need to act insane just because you killed. Let’s talk.”

Jian Si repeats what he said, “I killed Black Glove.”

“Then, do you know why Black Glove must not die?”

Jian Si stares at him in silence.

“Because he has a piece of info related to the bottom floor of Stargaol.” Ye Wang asks, “do you know what the bottom floor of Stargaol has?”

He fails to notice any reaction that would suggest the guy does or does not know, so he continues.

“A secret Stargaol has kept for centuries, and why it is able to stand independently of Federation shenanigans.” Ye Wang’s tone grows severe, “countless people want to know about this secret, and Black Glove happens to have a file on it. Want to guess how many people want this file from him?”

“Countless.” Ye Wang answers himself, “that is why Nianluo ordered Black Glove to die. Only with his death can all this chaos end.”

Jian Si interjects, “and he is dead.”

“Before he died, he recited three copies of the file. There were two on Old Coyote, and one on Lin Yi.”

Ye Wang smiles, “all fake.”

“So what does that have to do with Black Glove dying or not?”

“As long as Black Glove is alive, the powers attracted to the information will not have stopped.” Ye Wang leans a little forward towards Jian Si, “and we can take the opportunity to clean up the parasitic factions here.”

“But he is dead.” Ye Wang sighs, “all our plans have failed.”

Jian Si stares at him for a few seconds, then concludes, “you’re lying.”

Ye Wang truly is astonished now, he is watching Jian Si with the same face one might make seeing homo erectus evolve into homo sapiens in real time. He is truly in shock.

“How did you know?”

“The secrets of the bottom floor of Stargaol is not a secret to your side. Black Glove’s death means you can now produce a new file to drive interest from the other factions again.” Jian Si explains his logic succinctly, “Black Glove’s plan could not have failed your schemes entirely.”

“I am seriously doubting if you were really that innocent before.” Ye Wang claps at the deduction, “if you were just acting, congratulations. The impeccable performance fooled practically everyone.”

The lonely applause stops soon after without a chorus.

“Did you put up an act just to approach Black Glove?”

Ye Wang retrieves a notebook, looking properly like he’s interrogating now, “you should know stalling time with me serves no purpose for you either. How about you answer the questions quickly, then I can let you go sooner?”

It seems the prison officer from before had an effective talk, rebooting the reasoning module of Ye Wang’s brain.

Jian Si glances, but does not spot the prison officer from before anywhere.

Ye Wang notices, “he’s returned. You are intrigued by him?”

Jian Si retracts his gaze.

“If you are… I believe you will be meeting again very soon.” Ye Wang gets back on topic, “I will be asking the questions now, if you don’t mind.”

“Did you kill Black Glove?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you do it?”

Jian Si blinks, ruminating on the question for some seconds——Looking like he is justifying it on the spot, and settles on the simplest reason.

“He deserved it.”

Ye Wang lifts a brow, not commenting on the obvious lie here, “describe in detail the moment you killed him.”

Jian Si pauses again. This time, the period of reflection is long enough that he has to be making things up on the spot.

At least, no one with working memories will have to take this long to recall a memorable event from before, unless he has to hide something.

Ye Wang knows that. Jian Si also knows that.

Even if Ye Wang knows he will be receiving a confession of partial truth at best, he still comments nothing, but waits quietly for the guy to come up with his ‘believable’ story.

“He was standing in front of me, wielding a knife against me…”

Ye Wang interrupts to ask, “why was he wielding a knife against you?”

Jian Si goes quiet, and answers quite slowly, “he wanted to threaten me.”

Ye Wang obliges, “and why is that?”

Jian Si thinks for a few seconds, “because he wanted me to answer his question.” Before Ye Wang can ask again, Jian Si adds, “his question was, who sent me.”

Ye Wang almost feels like chuckling at how unconvincing this lie is.

Jian Si recounts away in the meantime, “so I wrestled the knife from him, and stabbed him thirteen times. He fell over, and died.”

“To wrestle a knife from Black Glove…” Ye Wang writes down the account while commenting, “unscathed. Good job, that.”

Black Glove may be aging, and hasn’t had to physically fight for a long time, but the Vice-Captain of Nianluo doesn’t just get the position from being sworn brothers of the Captain, but because he also had immense fighting prowess in the first place.

The difference in strength between Jian Si and Black Glove is great enough for one to wonder how Black Glove is dead rather than the other way around.

Still, the facts are right here. Black Glove is dead, and Jian Si is unhurt.

This is the fundamental reason Ye Wang believes Doctor had a hand——Unless Jian Si is truly such a great talent at pretending that he even fooled the entire intelligence of Stargaol, otherwise, Black Glove’s death cannot be explained due to the immense difference in strength.

And Stargaol’s intelligence does not fail——Outside of Jiang Yiyi, anyway, but Stargaol had never failed to find out details of people ever.

“According to the autopsy, there was one stab that looked odd.” Ye Wang asks Jian Si, pausing his pen, “the direction and depth of the wound appear different from all the others.”

Jian Si thinks for a few more seconds, then gives him a dry, “oh.”

“Nothing you want to add?”

“For example?”

“Explain why there was one stab that was different in both depth and direction?”

“It was chaotic. I do not remember.”

Ye Wang pauses writing once more to remind him, “you can remember how many stabs you made even in the chaos, but you don’t remember a distinctly different stab?”

“I don’t.”

“I see. Let’s see if this will help?” Ye Wang produces a photograph from his notebook, pushing it towards Jian Si, “look, remember anything else?”

The picture shows the scattered wounds all across Black Glove’s body, centred around the deepest wound in the middle, showing it to Jian Si. clearly.

“This was the stab that ultimately killed Black Glove.” Ye Wang points to it, “and the wound with a different direction and depth.”

“Different enough it could have been a whole different person.” Ye Wang stares closely at Jian Si, “perhaps, I can make an educated guess, that there was someone else there?”

“Someone else, who stopped Black Glove’s movements, taking his knife, and even killed with one clean strike.”

Jian Si watches the myriad of wounds for a while before speaking slowly, “there are surveillance cameras everywhere. You know that there were only me and Black Glove inside.”

“I really am curious now. What did the Doctor tell you?” Ye Wang leans back against his chair, still keeping a close eye on Jian Si, “he’s practically transformed you as a person.”

“I’ve said everything I needed to.” Jian Si pushes the photograph back to Ye Wang, “so can I go now?”