Case Files Chapter 9: Debut (7)

Translated by Vivian of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Addis

 

The Zilan Clubhouse was a famous, top-tier clubhouse that had opened fairly recently in the entertainment area. However, this clubhouse was different from the average private clubhouse; it was very large and there was a top-notch restaurant and bar in the front, and normal customers were allowed in there. Behind them was the actual private clubhouse, and only the club members were qualified to enter. It was rumored that it was very costly to join the club, and there were also prerequisites to be eligible.

Zheng Fei and Chen QiaoYu led Guan Jin, who wasn’t familiar with the area, to the front of the Zilan Clubhouse’s courtyard, which was concealed by a dense thicket. It was a renovation of an old-fashioned, western-style house, and it was low-profile and elegant on the outside, though it was a different world altogether inside.

In the afternoons, the restaurant and cafe were open, so the three of them went to the cafe.

Zheng Fei drank a cup of coffee as he looked around. “Damn, one cup of coffee is sixty yuan ¹, how did they make it? This really is a place just for burning money.”

Guan Jin carefully tasted his Blue Mountain coffee, which was mellow with a hint of sourness, and he was very satisfied. He had practically been tortured to death from drinking instant coffee these days.

Zheng Fei suddenly grabbed the menu and looked at it carefully before pointing at Guan Jin and exclaiming in shock, “Why would you order such an expensive one?!” 

“I like it,” Guan Jin replied indifferently.

“…Careful, what if the boss doesn’t reimburse you?”

“That’s enough, you two. He’ll reimburse it, okay? Aren’t you afraid we’ll attract attention like this?!” Chen QiaoYu interrupted the two unreliable people.

Guan Jin pouted. “It’s broad daylight and it’s bustling in here, how can anyone notice anything?”

“The broad daylight is a guise, the private clubhouse back there is the real deal. Unfortunately, we can’t go in, so we can only stay here and observe the situation, perhaps we’ll get an opportunity,” Zheng Fei explained patiently

Guan Jin leisurely drank his coffee, too lazy to care about some secret. He was thinking about whether or not there were any people in City S that were worth contacting. He wanted to find out the reason and cause of his death, which meant that he would either have to return to Hong Kong or contact someone in Hong Kong so he could investigate things from afar. As a police officer, he could make up some excuses to use the database and to contact the underground network of City S. Since this Zilan Clubhouse had the ability to gather some powerful people, it was quite appealing to Guan Jin.

Just as he was secretly plotting things, Zheng Fei patted his shoulder and said in an undertone, “Stay here and continue observing, QiaoYu and I will see if we can get inside to take a look.”

Then, he asked a waiter where the restroom was, and the two of them left.

Observe? Guan Jin sneered inwardly. What could he observe here? When he finished the last sip of his coffee, he caught the attention of a waiter so he could pay the bill and stuck his hands into his pockets as he slowly walked outside. When he arrived at the courtyard, no one happened to be there. Guan Jin avoided the security cameras and quickly darted to the corner of the western wall of the cafe. There was a wrought iron fence around three meters tall behind him, and there were rose vines wound around it. Guan Jin rubbed his hands, grabbed the metal poles of the fence, and climbed up.

When he got to the top, he was already panting heavily, and his arms trembled. This body was too fragile, and Guan Jin quietly decided that he would have to start working out. There was a sprawling lawn on the other side of the fence, so Guan Jin let go, about to jump off. Just as his body left the fence, Guan Jin felt his blood begin to boil again, and the days he spent wandering around in the dangerous streets in his childhood came back. But what was this thing that had hooked onto his trousers!!! Guan Jin didn’t even have time to curse as the rose vine that had gotten tangled around his trousers caused him to lose his balance. With a thud, he fell face-down on the grass, startling countless flying insects…

Guan Jin, who stayed there and pretended to be dead for a while, jumped up and put some pressure on his hip bone, which was numb because of the fall. He muttered some swears as he looked around. The clubhouse’s courtyard was very quiet, and the front door of the old-fashioned, western-style house was closed. Although in order to protect guests’ privacy, there were no cameras in the courtyard, climbing to the second or third floor and entering through a window was evidently impossible with this weak body.

Guan Jin hesitated, and he suddenly heard a faint flurry of footsteps. A group of about six or seven people entered from the side door of the courtyard, and they were escorting a middle-aged man to the front door. At the same time, the front door opened, and two servers led a group of people out. 

Guan Jin took advantage of the moment the two groups passed each other and quickly followed the group that was going inside, openly walking behind them. The doorman welcomed them in, and Guan Jin walked inside the clubhouse.

Unfortunately, Guan Jin, who thought that he had snuck in seamlessly, hadn’t noticed that behind the curtains of a window on the second floor, a man with a slightly amused expression was enjoying his entire process of sneaking into the clubhouse.

The clubhouse had kept the building’s original German-style architecture, and had added many stylish elements, though not enough to be wasteful. After Guan Jin walked in with the group of people, he quietly turned a corner and escaped. There was a large, empty room next to him, and there was a faint aroma of tobacco lingering in the air; it was a cigar bar. 

Further ahead, there seemed to be a wine bar, and then were a few private rooms and small meeting rooms, making this a normal clubhouse that couldn’t be more normal. Guan Jin felt a little uncertain; either there was nothing wrong with this place, or there was an even more secret location in this building. He avoided a few servers and surveyed the practically empty building. With his familiarity of architectural structures, he determined that there weren’t any rooms large enough to hold a dozen people or so on the first or second floor.

Could it be that there was a secret room on the third floor? Guan Jin pondered for a little, and he suddenly shook his head firmly. Am I crazy?! Why do I care about these things, have I really started to regard myself as a police officer after pretending to be one for so long?

At the end of the third floor, someone seemed to be talking in a room with an ajar door. Guan Jin froze before darting into a restroom nearby. A man seemed to be talking on the phone as he hurriedly walked out.

“Don’t worry, sir, I’ll go there now and take care of it for you… Yes, yes, this was a result of our carelessness, so we’ll bear the losses…” His voice gradually faded, and when Guan Jin was sure he was gone, he walked out of the restroom.

This corridor was different from the others, as there were security cameras installed, and it seemed to be where the clubhouse’s office was. Guan Jin rubbed his chin and walked back into the restroom. He opened a janitor closet, and sure enough, a clean janitor uniform was hanging inside, as well as a lot of disposable masks.

When he finished putting on the uniform, Guan Jin quickly rushed to the door at the end of the passageway and twisted the doorknob; it was unlocked. The heavens must be helping me, thought Guan Jin, and the corner of his mouth hooked upwards behind the mask. 

Sure enough, he found himself in a large office with simple and stylish decor. He looked around before walking straight to the desk and quickly looked through the documents on it. Suddenly, Guan Jin’s gaze landed on a drawer that wasn’t fully closed. He pulled it open and saw that the first folder in it had around a dozen pieces of paper. Guan Jin took it out and opened it… he seemed to have found something very useful.

Guan Jin closed the drawer, thought for a moment, and then pulled it open again to maintain its original state. Suddenly, a faint ding made Guan Jin tense up. Shit! 

This drawer had an electronic anti-theft device attached to it! Guan Jin didn’t have time to think, so he pulled out the papers and hid them on himself while he rushed out the door, quickly running downstairs. Just when he arrived at the second floor, he heard a commotion coming from downstairs, and there seemed to be four or five people running towards his direction. 

Guan Jin could only take off the janitor uniform as he ran in the opposite direction. He randomly opened the door to a small room and threw the uniform and mask inside. Just as he was about to turn around and look for a way out, a hand reached out from behind him and pulled him into the room.

Guan Jin was shocked, and beads of cold sweat lined his forehead. Somehow, he hadn’t noticed that there was someone inside the room! The room’s thick curtains were drawn, and there were a few lit wall lamps, giving the room a dim, warm lighting. The person was standing behind him and holding Guan Jin’s hands behind his back, though he didn’t use a lot of force. Guan Jin was skeptical about this body’s fighting prowess, so he decided to wait and see what the person was going to do.

“Tsk tsk, a little kitten seems to have snuck in…” The man’s voice was low, but it was damned familiar. Guan Jin kind of hated his extraordinary memory now, and when he looked behind him, he saw a handsome face with a hint of elegance.

“You——” Before Guan Jin could finish, footsteps sounded outside.

The man placed his index finger on his lips in a shushing gesture and kicked the uniform Guan Jin had thrown in under the coffee table. Then, he pushed Guan Jin down onto the couch. Guan Jin was pressed against the backrest, the man was in extremely close proximity to him and with his arms around him.

Although the man didn’t do anything else, the hairs on the back of Guan Jin’s neck stood up. It was true that he liked men, but he liked men who were attractive, slender, and obedient, so it didn’t feel very good to be hugged by a man with a rock-hard body and a bigger build than him.

At this time, someone knocked on the door and pushed it slightly open. The man’s back was facing the door, just happening to block Guan Jin’s face from the person peering inside. The man’s evident masculinity and his warm breaths that landed on Guan Jin’s ear made him tense up, and Guan Jin swore that if this man dared to make any other movements, then he wouldn’t care if he exposed himself or not, he would definitely beat him up! When the person outside saw this intimate scene, they hurriedly apologized quietly and closed the door immediately, the sound of their footsteps quickly receding.

Guan Jin pushed the man away and quickly stood up. He asked coldly, “Who are you? Why are you following me?” 

Guan Jin didn’t think that he had exposed his identity as an assassin. After all, the transferring of one’s soul and being reborn didn’t leave any traces at all, so no one would make the connection between an assassin like him and an irrelevant policeman. If this person really had a purpose in following him, then it had to be directed towards Guan Jin himself.

“You’ve misunderstood. I’m not following you, this is merely a coincidence.” The man raised his hands to show his innocence.

“Coincidence? You bumped into me at the hospital and now you’ve encountered me again here. What a coincidence.”

“You’re wrong. At the hospital, it was you who bumped into me, and here, you’re the one who stumbled in front of me. I was just an innocent passerby the whole time.”

“…Exactly what do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to do anything. Don’t worry, I’m not a nosy person, so I won’t ask you why you snuck in.”

“If you’re not nosy, then why am I standing here right now?” Guan Jin raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that’s because of my willingness to help others.”

Guan felt a little powerless. “How dare you say that I snuck in?!”

“I unintentionally saw you use freefall to get into the courtyard.”

Freefall… Guan Jin warned himself to suppress his anger as he turned around to leave.

“Lu YunYang.”

Guan Jin paused.

“That’s my name. At any rate, we’ve already encountered each other twice, so we might as well get acquainted.”

Guan Jin glanced at him impassively before he pulled open the door, closed it, and disappeared.

Lu YunYang lifted his hand and looked comfortably at the police ID card in his palm. Guan Jin? What an interesting little policeman.