Insights Chapter 135: The Rise of the Earth Dragon

Chapter 135: The Rise of the Earth Dragon

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

October, in a residential house in the south of Penang. For over a month now, Ding Yueran had noticed that they had been constantly on the move, sometimes sleeping until midnight, only for Mu Yuwei to hurriedly summon a driver, knocking on his door, urging him to relocate.

Eventually, even Yazheng disappeared, and he hadn’t seen Ah Jin either. It seemed like everyone suddenly lost contact. Ding Yueran could sense that these crazed individuals were reaching the end of their rope.

Autumn was Ding Yueran’s favorite season; the weather was comfortable, not as hot as summer nor as cold as winter. And autumn was the season of harvest.

At this moment, Ding Yueran lay on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. When he was young, during this season, he could follow the adults to work in the fields. When they returned, he could take the opportunity to pick something, like corn. He would wrap the corn in its husk and throw it directly into the fire. Twenty minutes later, he would use a stick to pull out the roasted corn, peel off the charred outer layer, and inside, the corn would be especially sweet.

He would tuck the roasted corn into his arms. They were warm and heavy. He would sneak them to his mother and say, “Mom, eat!”

At those times, a rare smile would appear on his mother’s face.

During the day, the two of them dared not eat, fearing that someone might see and take it away. They would hide under the covers at night, each eating the cooled roasted corn. The corn was sweet and juicy. His mother would leave the tenderest tip for him. When he took a bite, the sweet juice would burst in his mouth.

That was the most delicious earthly delight he had ever tasted.

After growing up, he had also tasted such delicious food. It was when he killed someone and was handcuffed by the police to be taken to the City Bureau.

Halfway there, his stomach growled loudly, impossible to ignore.

Li Zhongnan, driving, asked him, “Are you hungry?”

The officer beside him advised Li Zhongnan, “Captain Li, it’s only half an hour until we reach the City Bureau. He won’t starve. Delaying on the way might cause trouble…”

He was a repeat offender who had killed several people. Every officer escorting him was on edge, afraid of making mistakes.

Li Zhongnan said, “We can’t let him starve. I’ll get him something.”

Before the officer could say anything else, Li Zhongnan added, “Quick, it’ll only take two or three minutes.”

Then Li Zhongnan turned to him and asked, “What do you want to eat?”

He thought for a moment, thinking of his mother, and said, “Corn, roasted corn.”

Li Zhongnan got out of the car for a while, and after a moment, he came back and handed him a package containing a cooked sticky corn and two tea eggs.

Li Zhongnan said, “There’s no roasted ones nearby. Just make do.”

The officer driving in front said, “Captain Li, you’re too kind to him. He’s going to prison. It’s not bad to have something to eat. What’s with the ‘make do’ talk?”

Ding Yueran lowered his head, silently tore open the plastic bag, picked up the corn with his handcuffed hands, and started eating. The corn was particularly sweet, sticky, and hot, softer than the cold roasted corn.

He was extremely hungry, devouring it greedily.

Li Zhongnan said beside him, “Don’t burn yourself.”

His nose tingled. That corn was truly an earthly delight. As Ding Yueran was thinking, the door suddenly clicked open. Mu Yuwei strode in, tossing a package onto the table. He raised his eyes to see a package of corn. The bag read “Organic Sweet Corn, Non-GMO,” and the corn was neatly packaged and hot.

“I brought this for you, knowing you like it.” Mu Yuwei sat beside him, boasting, “Dad is still good to you.”

He took a bite of the corn. It tasted very bland, completely unlike the flavor he remembered from childhood. He asked, “What do you want from me? Another planning job?”

He was familiar with Mu Yuwei’s ways. Mu Yuwei would only be nice to him when he wanted something done or needed his planning skills. His way of being nice was quite simple, like giving him money or buying him things he liked, or even saying he would leave the cleaning company to him. He remembered one time after doing a plan, Mu Yuwei ordered a table of over eight thousand worth of Japanese food for him, but he hardly ate any of it.

At that time, Mu Yuwei asked, “Don’t you like it? Then what do you like?”

He thought for a moment and said, “Corn.”

Mu Yuwei looked at him strangely. His eyes seemed to say, “Indeed, you’re just a country bumpkin who can’t appreciate good things,” or perhaps silently cursed him as a fool who couldn’t enjoy life.

But Mu Yuwei remembered this incident. Whenever he needed something from him, he would bring corn. Sure enough, Mu Yuwei said, “This time, I need you to plan something. I’ve got something here that could blow up a building. I need you to come up with a foolproof plan for me.”

He paused with the corn in his hand. This corn wasn’t good, indeed. He said, “What if I don’t?”

Mu Yuwei’s face tensed up. He stood up, pulled out a gun from behind him, and aimed it directly at Ding Yueran’s head, causing him to tilt his head.

Mu Yuwei immediately flicked off the safety, “I used to tolerate you, but you need to know what time it is now. If you don’t do it, I’ll kill you.”

In the past, he might have played along with Mu Yuwei’s act, but now, facing the clear water, they were both too familiar with each other. Ding Yueran bit into the corn; even if it wasn’t good, it was better than nothing. He didn’t even raise his eyes lazily and said, “Then shoot.”

In the past, he might have fallen for Mu Yuwei’s tricks, but now, he saw through them. Neither temptation nor threat worked anymore. There was nothing in this world he cared about. He didn’t fear death, he even considered it a release. After he died, he could find his mother, find Li Zhongnan.

Mu Yuwei sneered, flicked the safety back on, holstered the gun behind him. He seemed to have expected Ding Yueran to say that. “Dad was just joking with you. I have something for you to see.”

He took out his phone from his pocket and played a short video on the table. It was a thirty-second video someone had uploaded to a short video website. The video was taken at a bus stop, where a man was pulling a young girl, and then another man suddenly appeared and rescued the girl.

Watching the video, Ding Yueran’s eyes widened. He couldn’t be mistaken. The person who appeared later in the video was Li Zhongnan, and he didn’t look like the Li Zhongnan from before; he looked even thinner than before.

The video was shot at the end of summer, probably not long ago. The advertisement behind was for the new season, and there were no signs of manipulation in the video. It was newly taken.

“This cop really has a tough life. I shot him several times back then, even dropped him in the sea, but he didn’t die. However, it’s good that he didn’t die.” Mu Yuwei said as he hugged the stunned Ding Yueran, like a loving father embracing his beloved son.

Mu Yuwei smiled, “If you don’t do this planning job well, I can have my remaining dogs kill him at any time.”

Li Zhongnan was doing well. This way, he could threaten Ding Yueran to get back on track, and they could be like before. He was the boss, and Ding Yueran was the clear water, his best planner.

Ding Yueran watched the video again and said to Mu Yuwei, “Send me the video, I’ll do the planning.”

Mu Yuwei said, “It needs to be a foolproof plan.”

Ding Yueran grunted, “I will find a suitable person.”

In his mind, he thought that this time, he would make a plan different from before. The weather changed from sunny to cloudy, and in the distance, thunder was heard, signaling rain. In the afternoon, a police car drove on the road heading northwest to Penang.

Lu Ying was driving, with Yu Shen in the passenger seat, and Shen Junci and Gu Yanchen in the back seat.

Today, their destination was Wangshe Township. To prevent the discovery of the corpse, Shen Junci placed the investigation kit in the trunk.

After discovering the problem with the archive system that day, Gu Yanchen, the supervisory team leader, and Director Ding reported the matter. The leaders attached great importance to it and instructed them to investigate based on the clues.

These days, Gu Yanchen has been cross-referencing the archive files in the Penang City Bureau. To avoid leaking information, they only allowed internal members of the Special Criminal Division to compare them during the night shift after work. Through the comparison between the police platform and the index catalog made by Xiao Qi, they found nearly a hundred files that were hidden or tampered with.

Gu Yanchen selected all these files and focused on studying the 722 case. They had heard Lu Ying talk about the story of that case before. Then Yu Shen, as the party involved in the case, described it to them again. The case was about the disappearance of Yu Shen’s parents, both of whom were media reporters.

Fifteen years ago, on July 22nd. It was raining heavily that night, and Yu Shen’s parents suddenly received a call. They hastily dressed and went out, leaving Yu Shen and the dog at home. That year, Yu Shen was seven years old.

Reviewing this file again, they learned many details, such as the phone call the couple received that night, which came from the village store at the head of Wangshe Village. The village store had a public telephone, and the person in charge was an old man in his eighties. Usually, whoever made a call would throw a coin into a basket next to the phone.

That night, it was raining heavily, and someone used the public phone to call Yu Shen’s home.

The call lasted about a minute. The old man in charge of the store was dozing off at the time and didn’t see clearly who made the call. The first investigation by the police ended here.

Now, with the case reopened, Gu Yanchen found a key point: this Wangshe Village was at the foot of Luming Mountain, only two kilometers away from the mountains. Although he often climbed Luming Mountain, he had never investigated Wangshe Village.

This clue matched Lin Xianglan’s last words.

Gu Yanchen decided to use a straightforward method. He personally brought his team to inquire, going door-to-door in the village. He didn’t believe they couldn’t find any clues. As long as they could find out who made the call and what was said, they would be one step closer to the truth of the case.

Lu Ying said as he drove, “I remember this road. Because it’s near the mountain, it rains frequently, and the road becomes muddy. The car shakes when driving.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a muffled thunder came from the distant sky.

Lu Ying spat, “I jinxed it.”

Yu Shen came voluntarily today. He didn’t speak much, always looking out the window. He hoped to find something this time but also feared what they might discover.

Shen Junci sat in the back, with Gu Yanchen’s notebook on his lap, flipping through the other modified information.

He and Gu Yanchen had analyzed these files one by one. At first glance, there didn’t seem to be much connection. The missing cases were very scattered, with different ages and genders.

Shen Junci flipped through the files for a while and said to Gu Yanchen, “I noticed a time period, between twenty-five and fifteen years ago, during which most of the modified missing files were about males. Also, take a look at these files.”

Gu Yanchen followed his pointing finger. Mute, lame, mildly intellectually disabled. Several of these individuals had mild disabilities that didn’t completely affect their work and life.

Gu Yanchen looked and said, “They’ve all received assistance from the Penang Foundation.”

Were they trying to cheat welfare benefits? But how much money was that? And why did these people disappear? As they were speaking, the car stopped, and just a dozen meters ahead was the village store, with a parking space nearby.

Shen Junci put away the computer, and Gu Yanchen glanced at the sky. It might rain later, so he reminded Yu Shen, “Take the raincoats.”

Yu Shen packed several raincoats into his backpack and slung it over his back.

Lu Ying took out his logbook and got ready to record. Their first stop was the village store.

The old man from back then had long passed away, and now it was his granddaughter running the store. She was chubby and somewhat talkative, introducing, “There aren’t many people left in the village now; they’ve all gone out to work. If my store doesn’t do well, I might leave next year.”

Gu Yanchen asked about the phone call. The granddaughter shook her head, “I don’t know; my grandpa never knew who called.”

She paused and said, “But someone else asked about it too.”

Gu Yanchen asked, “When? Who?”

The granddaughter thought for a moment, “Five years ago, an old policeman.”

Shen Junci showed the woman Lin Xianglan’s photo.

The woman said, “I don’t remember clearly, but it looks like him. It was pouring rain that day, and he was wearing a dark green raincoat. He also asked about that phone call.”

Lin Xianglan had such a raincoat.

Shen Junci and Gu Yanchen were energized; this meant they weren’t on the wrong track.

They began questioning the villagers. Several of them went to the current village chief’s house, showed their police badges, and said they wanted to conduct an investigation. The village chief cooperated and provided them with a list of names of people in the village.

So they began going door-to-door in the village, asking questions. But they got no results. The village, shaped like a bone on the map, consisted of one narrow street from east to west, with around a hundred households. They went from the east end to the west end, but still couldn’t find out who made that call.

As the sky grew increasingly overcast, they finally arrived at the home of the former village head in the west of the village.

The former village head let them in, stroking his beard as he said, “I don’t know. This happened over a decade ago; the police came to investigate, but no one knew who made the call. It’s been so long, have they still not found that couple?”

Yu Shen stood at the back, lips slightly pursed as he listened.

Gu Yanchen asked, “Has anyone in the village gone missing or anything unusual happened?”

The former village head thought for a moment, then shook his head.

Just as he finished speaking, there was a muffled thunder outside, followed by a sudden darkening of the sky.

The former village head looked up at the sky, his expression changing, “It’s going to pour. Quick, come inside!”

They hurried into the front hall.

Everything changed too quickly, as if someone were facing a catastrophe. Within just a minute or two, the sky went from overcast to black, turning into a pitch-black ink. The muffled thunder grew denser and closer, sounding like someone beating a large drum. Then with a crack, a purple lightning bolt streaked across the sky, as if splitting it in half.

Immediately afterward, raindrops the size of beans began to fall from the sky, the rain pouring down as if someone had poked a hole in the heavens, pouring water directly down.

Several policemen were completely stunned by this sight. The rain was too fast, too urgent, too heavy.

Shen Junci remembered the last time they encountered such rain when they were watching a movie. The rain was already heavy then, and they ran back home soaked, but compared to the rain currently falling, it was like a gentle drizzle.

The rain grew heavier, and the sky became so dark that you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. The old village leader rushed to close the windows, the courtyard gate still far away. Just then, illuminated by a lightning bolt, they saw a figure rushing out of the nearby farmhouse, heading straight into the rain.

It was a man, completely disregarding the fact that he was getting drenched. Another lightning bolt streaked across the sky, and the man, illuminated by the light, opened his arms wide and shouted, “The earth dragon is turning over!”