Case Files Chapter 109: Still Waters and Bitter Cold (2)

Translated by Vivian of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Addis

 

Gossip was the Special Cases Unit’s eternal theme…

“Ou Chen, how come this name feels so familiar?” Gu Xiang frowned as he carefully searched his memory.

“He was a giant in the underground entertainment industry in Southeast Asia six or seven years ago. However, gaming and nightclubs and such were only the surface. In reality, he was closely tied to the illegal arms and drugs industries. However, seven years ago, he was caught by Interpol and the local police. He was lucky enough to escape, and no one knows of his whereabouts to date,” Lin Bai quickly whispered, having sneaked a peek at some secret file.

“Did the boss really have… a fling with him?” Chen QiaoYu asked in disbelief.

“But he didn’t deny what that person said, and besides, didn’t the boss go undercover before? Maybe…” Ding Ding’s mind began to wander.

“I’ve discovered that when I’m not here, you guys are all very talkative, always huddled together and chattering. It makes me feel excluded, and I feel very sad.” Wen JingHan leaned against the doorway with an aggrieved expression.

“…Ahaha, we’re just discussing trivial matters, so how could we dare bring you into such irrelevant conversations?” said Chen QiaoYu.

“Tell me, I want to be integrated into the people’s discussions,” insisted Wen JingHan.

“We were discussing whether what that person said was true or not,” Guan Jin said straightforwardly.

“Which part of what he said?” Wen JingHan walked in and sat down.

“About you.”

“It’s not good to be too curious, it’s more important to focus on your own jobs.” Wen JingHan didn’t answer directly and smiled instead. “The director already agreed to let us work with the anti-drug unit to investigate the recent case, so you all should go over to understand the situation and get familiar with the information. In the afternoon, we’ll have a brief meeting and I’ll divide up the tasks.”

In the end, the team who hadn’t gotten their answers felt unsatisfied. However, they knew not to push things too far, so they were forced to drop it.

Suddenly, Guan Jin’s phone rang; it was Lu YunYang.

“What are you doing? I’m making pork ribs tonight, what kind of flavor do you want?”

“…A strong one.”

“Okay…”

“Right,” Guan Jin was suddenly a little excited, “I have some shocking gossip I need to tell you when I get home later.”

Guan Jin hung up and looked at Wen JingHan. “What do you need me to do for this case?”

…Everyone was once again appalled by his frankness.

*****

“I can’t believe someone would dare to go to the police station and spread rumors!!!” The Duke’s expression was extremely dark.

Wen JingHan raised an eyebrow. “You even dared to plant someone in the bureau? Nice, I really underestimated you.”

“Stop avoiding the main point!” 

Wen JingHan looked at his seemingly very furious expression and suddenly wanted to laugh, so he walked over and rubbed the Duke’s face. “You’re really cute like this~”

The Duke was speechless.

“Let it go, it was so long ago in the past.” Wen JingHan didn’t care at all. “With something like this, I’ll just ignore him, and it’ll clear up like smoke in no time. Besides, it wasn’t like he was slandering me, everything he said was true.”

The Duke exclaimed, “What do you mean, true?! How dare someone bring up that damned person?!”

“Hey, don’t be so immature whenever you talk about him, okay? Just leave it be, it’s easier for people to pretend not to know things if everyone just keeps quiet.”

“There’s nothing here for you that you can’t part with, come back to the United Kingdom with me.” The Duke was still unhappy.

“This place is my home, and I’m used to living here. It has too many of my memories and it has my friends, so I can’t just leave.” Wen JingHan leaned into his arms and said a little coquettishly, “Could you really bear to see me so unhappy?”

With Wen JingHan in his arms, the Duke’s anger immediately dissipated, and his hands slid around Wen JingHan’s waist as he began to reach into his clothes.

“Hey, I need to go shower…”

“No, you don’t.”

“Then let’s at least go to the bed——”

“Here!” the Duke insisted stubbornly.

Wen JingHan sighed inwardly; the Duke would get so angry just hearing Ou Chen’s name, exactly how strong was his possessiveness…

When the Duke of Canterbury thought about how his territory had been stepped in by someone else, he could no longer remain calm. Before, because of Wen JingHan’s disuasion, he hadn’t made a move. Hmph, he decided that he must get rid of that damned Ou Chen in order to prevent future troubles!

“Mm… Aren’t you done yet… Ah——”

Clearly, jealous men were just as scary as jealous women. The next day, Wen JingHan called in sick to work…

*****

“I thought that you would want to talk to me privately.” Yu Mo’s expression was a little conflicted.

“How could our conversation be considered as evidence for this case if it was in private?” Wen JingHan brought him to a small meeting room. “There’s nothing worth hiding about these matters, you already exposed everything you can expose, so why would I hide anything?”

“Ahem,” Yu Mo turned uneasily, “would it affect you?”

“Oh, so you finally have the heart to care about my situation?” Wen JingHan smiled and poured a cup of water for him.

“Is there only water?” Yu Mo frowned.

“What, do you want coffee? Do you really think those types of television shows are accurate? We don’t even have coffee ourselves.”

“I clearly saw a coffee machine at the entrance.”

“Did you bring your own coffee beans?”

“…”

“Okay, let’s get down to business.” Wen JingHan crossed his legs. “I’m going to record this, if you don’t mind.”

Yu Mo frowned again, but he didn’t refuse.

“Are you aware of the recent drug trafficking going on in City S? Don’t deny it so fast, I know that you’re not part of it, but I’m sure you still have information sources.”

Yu Mo looked at the steam rising from his cup of hot water for a while before saying, “I know that recently, drugs from Southeast Asia have begun being transported. However, they don’t seem to be very careful and even purposely left clues. Even my artists have been dragged into it, and with such public figures being involved, everyone will know about it soon.”

Wen JingHan looked down and thought for a moment. “Does it have something to do with Ou Chen?”

Yu Mo looked up abruptly. “Ever since JiaMan ¹ fell apart, I haven’t heard from Brother Chen.”

“But you never gave up on snooping around, right? Otherwise, why are you still gathering all of this information about underworld organizations? Is it too boring being in a performing arts company?”

Yu Mo said fiercely, “You’re just as vicious and annoying as before.”

Wen JingHan shrugged. “I’m very happy that I haven’t been changed by time.”

“Brother Chen used to do stuff like this, but the style of this isn’t like him, so he’s definitely not behind it,” Yu Mo answered truthfully.

“But it still must be related to him, since he wants to make a comeback. I’m not trying to track him down. If I was, he wouldn’t be able to escape, and I wouldn’t have waited until today. Right now, I just want to get to the bottom of this case.”

Yu Mo muttered something under his breath and sighed. “You always know how to have people in the palm of your hand. Actually, I only know a tiny bit. Someone is making a new drug, and they bribed some chemists and medical experts. They used an abandoned laboratory in City S to secretly perform a lot of experiments, and I heard that the trial product has been completed…” Yu Mo took a sip of his water.

“A new formula?” Wen JingHan immediately recalled a past case. “So the incident at Min Yan’s clubhouse before was actually because Mr. X wanted to test the first batch of these drugs in City S? I thought I guessed who he is, but he used to be active in Central and South America, so why would he pick City S? This is an economically developed area and it’s relatively orderly. It’s not a good place to develop and sell new drugs.”

“But this place has demand.” Yu Mo smiled mirthlessly.

Wen JingHan was confused. “Demand? Could it be a type of medicine and not a drug?”

“That’s one possibility. This research and development requires a lot of equipment and a very long time, so they probably borrowed the cover of a big project in City S and obtained the research equipment and materials that they needed. However, I don’t know exactly who is working with them.”

Wen JingHan leaned against the backrest of the sofa, and his expression was a little imposing. “Such a big operation has been going on for so long, yet we only got wind of it at the end. We’ve been too careless.”

“This just shows how smart they are.”

“But since we know their goal now, it’s easy to take care of. There’s nobody that can get past me.”

“Which is why you’re so despicable.” Yu Mo glared at him.

“Haha, I’ll invite you to dinner some other day.” Wen JingHan smiled and stopped the audio recording. “Have you still not given up on Ou Chen?”

Yu Mo was taken aback, and he bit his lip. “Is there any point to still being hung up on him?”

“It’s good that you’re self-aware. That person has always been an expert at maximizing his profit, and to him, feelings are only valuable when they’re in his best interest. Perhaps you think that this is his limit and that it’s already very precious. However, in my opinion, feelings are not a necessity to him, and he can abandon them whenever. Since you already have a new life, don’t fall back in. Take a better look at the people in front of you, and you might be surprised.”

Yu Mo stared at him in silence for a while. Then, his gaze landed on Wen JingHan’s name tag. He smiled bitterly. “‘JingHan’, so it turns out it’s those two characters. These suit you better; those two characters from the past stumped us for so long.”

“You and the others’ IQs were too low and EQs too limited, so don’t blame me.”

“…I’ll be taking my leave now.”

*****

“How come you’re free to come today?” Jiang Shu placed a glass of freshly squeezed watermelon juice on the bar.

“I want alcohol,” said Wen JingHan.

“What, do you have something on your mind?” Jiang Shu smiled warmly and gave him a glass of cocktail instead.

“Can’t you give me something stronger?”

“So I can knock you out and then get knocked out by your man?”

Wen JingHan helplessly took the wine glass. “Are you my babysitter?”

Jiang Shu flipped the sign on the door so that it said “closed” and returned to the bar, sitting next to Wen JingHan. “What happened?”

“I saw Yu Mo.”

Jiang Shu was taken aback. “Mo Ran?”

“Mn, his name used to be Yu Mo, and he’s returned back to his identity. He’s doing pretty well.”

“Did he bring up the stuff from the past?”

“Do you think he could avoid that? His anger issues are still the same as ever, though his control has grown a lot, and he calmed himself down very quickly.”

Jiang Shu could imagine Yu Mo’s furious look, and he smiled subconsciously. “You shouldn’t anger him anymore.”

Wen JingHan took a sip of his wine and winced at the pungency. “I rarely think about the past.”

“Because you’ve always been very tough. You’re doing quite well nowadays.”

“Do you still think about it?”

“Mn. But I don’t feel sad or anything, it just feels a bit like a dream that comes back to haunt me every once in a while.”

*****

Seven years ago.

“Brother Kui, look, we received a windfall this time and were able to get this beauty.” A young blond man said excitedly.

“Beauty? Don’t you know that I’ve seen many beauties in this line of work?” A-Kui blew smoke rings from his cigarette.

“This one’s different. When we were making a transaction, he wandered into the wrong room by mistake. At first, we wanted to get rid of him, but when we saw that figure, we realized he must be some rich heir. His skin is tender and his eyes are bright, and we all wanted to——hehe…” The blond man sneered.

“Show him to me.” A-Kui’s interest was piqued.

Two people walked over supporting a slim, hooded figure, and the blond lifted the hood.

“Brother Kui, he’s pretty good, right?”

“He’s more than good…” A-Kui’s eyes flashed with lust, but he quickly suppressed it. “You guys didn’t touch him, right?”

“We know the rules, we didn’t even touch a finger,” the blond quickly said.

“His background isn’t troublesome, is it?”

“We looked into it. He’s a foreigner, and was on a trip with his family, who are some average businessmen. By the time we brought him on the ship and left, no one could find him.”

“Good work. Tell people to look after him and that not a single hair can be missing from his head. Clean him up and show him to Brothen Chen, perhaps he can satiate those rich people for a while.”

 

“Yes, yes…” The blond waved for people to take the unconscious boy downstairs.