When Jason returned to the empty room, he was furious, firing his gun in frustration.

“Damn it! That cop teamed up with Ji Huaichuan to screw me over. Chase them!”

In the Golden Triangle, where different forces intertwine, guns are the ultimate currency. But, that only holds true if you manage to stay alive.

The building was tall outside, and I measured the distance, trying to figure out how to safely slide down through the ventilation ducts. Before I could make a move, someone grabbed my wrist and pressed me against the wall. It was Jiang Rang, who was supposed to meet up with his squad but had shown up here instead.

His eyes held a storm of madness, and his voice, rough like fragments scraped against sandpaper, cut through the air.

“This is the second time. Are you faking your death again to run away?”

I was surprised. I thought he would be more concerned about how I had used him.

“I wasn’t trying to fake my death. You saw it—I’ve always been lucky.”

I struggled a bit but couldn’t move, so I sighed in resignation.

“You’re as stubborn as ever.”

Blood splattered on Jiang Rang’s sharp features, and his gaze grew even darker when he looked at me.

“I haven’t changed. But have you?”

I raised an eyebrow at his words, neither confirming nor denying them.

“Are you still the same as you were?”

Jiang Rang’s gaze turned dark as he stared at me. “Ji Deputy Chief.”

My expression shifted slightly, but I didn’t react much.

“Looks like you’ve gotten smarter since three years ago.”

I met his gaze calmly.

“But I’m no longer Ji Deputy Chief. If you’re here as a cop, I have nothing to say.”

Someone who had lost their badge, faked their own death in action, and was marked as deceased in the police database shouldn’t be here at all.

Tired of this interrogation, I turned to leave.

Jiang Rang, enraged, slammed me back against the wall.

“But I missed you. I missed you so much it drove me mad.”

Outside, gunfire echoed amid the alarm sirens. My lips were nearly torn apart by his violent kiss. I could barely make out his voice amidst the chaos.

“Ji Huaichuan, you’re heartless. You want me to kill you. What do you think I felt when I returned to the station and saw that my promotion approval was in your handwriting?”

Despair had almost consumed Jiang Rang. Even though I hadn’t seen him for three years, I could imagine how he had tortured himself again and again.

Feeling guilty, I avoided his gaze.

“What are you doing in the Golden Triangle?” Jiang Rang loosened his grip on my waist, his gaze turning cold again.

He seemed to have returned to that cold, upright version of himself.

“You’re already a wanted man. Stay out of police business.”

What a hypocrite. I mentally rolled my eyes at his double standards.

“About being a wanted man, you shouldn’t get involved either, or else…”

I made a slicing gesture across my neck. “You’ll end up dead fast.”

The air grew tense for a moment. I pouted at him, feigning innocence.

Seemingly tired of this back-and-forth game of probing and confrontation, Jiang Rang suddenly grabbed my wrist and pressed it against the wall.

“Ji Huaichuan, I just need to know—are we on the same side?”

Though Jiang Rang’s gaze appeared casual, he was carefully studying my every micro-expression, trying to figure out something. For a moment, I felt as if all my defenses had been stripped away.

I moved my lips, about to say something, when I noticed a glint of light from a sniper scope out of the corner of my eye.

Someone was nearby, aiming at me with a sniper rifle.

With a quiet sigh, I leaned into Jiang Rang, my hand subtly trailing along his slender waist as I whispered in his ear.

“I can promise you this.”

Without any change in my expression, I continued.

“Perhaps, for a moment, we will be on the same side.”

Jiang Rang, slightly on edge from my sudden closeness, didn’t have time to react.

Suddenly, a bullet from the sniper rifle pierced his left shoulder.

He staggered, clearly unprepared for me to use him as a shield. The pain made his pupils contract sharply.

“You…”

He might have suspected that the shooter was aiming for me, or maybe he knew I was familiar with the sniper. He couldn’t be sure.

But one thing was certain: I didn’t care whether he lived or died.

Despite that, his hand still held tightly onto my wrist, refusing to let go.

His jaw clenched, his eyes filled with sorrow.

“So this is how it felt back then… No wonder you abandoned me.”

Actually, it didn’t hurt that much.

If I told you I had local anesthesia back then, would you believe me?

It was only because I had to soak the wound in seawater afterward to maintain appearances that the injury became infected, forcing me to spend six months bedridden, nearly losing my life.

A helicopter hovered outside, lowering a ladder.

My extraction team had arrived.

Jiang Rang’s grip on my hand tightened suddenly.

“Ji Huaichuan… This time, don’t leave me behind again.”

With a bitter smile, Jiang Rang murmured, “I can’t live without you.”

I wiped the blood from his face, looking into his eyes.

“No one is indispensable to anyone. You should be grateful that you didn’t do something irreversible because of my ‘death.’ Otherwise, I would have been very, very disappointed in you.”

Without another glance at Jiang Rang, I turned and climbed up the ladder.

---

My boss, Fu Qin, was a mixed-blood who had clawed his way up through bloodshed.

He had personally killed his father and taken over his arms empire, becoming the undisputed ruler of the gun trade, dealing in high-stakes, life-or-death transactions.

Fu Qin was resting with his eyes closed when I arrived. He glanced at me, his eyelids barely lifting.

“Injured?”

My gaze swept over the American sniper rifle beside him, its barrel still warm.

I took the lighter handed to me by one of the men and lit a cigarette.

“No.”

Fu Qin closed his eyes again.

“Haven’t practiced in a while. My aim was off.”

“What a pity. That cop didn’t die.”

Leaning back, I exhaled a thin stream of smoke.

“I thought you’d be aiming at me from the start.”