52 Explosion

Hearing Jin Ze’s voice, although it instantly filled my heart with a ray of sunlight, I was still utterly shocked. How could Jin Ze be here?

I instinctively stopped in my tracks and looked up, quickly catching sight of a figure descending from above, practically gliding out from the entrance of the passage.

In a flash, I realized it truly was Jin Ze. Upon landing, he executed a slick tactical roll on the ground, and then I abruptly noticed that he was holding a gun in each hand.

A wave of panic surged through me, and I hurriedly tried to warn him not to shoot. However, my speed of speaking could not keep up with Jin Ze's speed of firing.

The moment I cried out his name, he had already pulled the trigger, firing two shots in the blink of an eye.

Two bullets whizzed through the air, traveling faster than the naked eye could track toward my back, followed instantly by two muffled groans.

My heart leaped into my throat. It is over, I thought. I have finally gotten my wish, only to be blown to smithereens here together, and I have even dragged Jin Ze down with me.

Yet, a few seconds later, everything remained calm. The massive explosion I had imagined never occurred.

Could Bai Ye have just been bluffing? I wondered. Was it a hollow threat he used to intimidate Lao Hei and Huang Ju?

I instinctively turned my head to look, only to see Lao Hei and Huang Ju lying limp on the ground. Blood was trickling from their necks, but the amount was minimal, and the wounds were shallow—to say nothing of any explosion.

In an instant, understanding dawned upon me. Those were not ordinary firearms that Jin Ze was wielding, but tranquilizer darts. He had incapacitated Lao Hei and Huang Ju.

It seemed Jin Ze was in possession of a wealth of intelligence. Since he had tracked them all the way here and opted for tranquilizer darts instead of live rounds, he must have gathered an extensive amount of background information.

Then, a fresh wave of anxiety clutched at my heart: Did Jin Ze know that I was Chen Mu, and not Huang Quan?

Just as I was worrying, Jin Ze suddenly said to me, "Chen Mu, get behind me quickly."

Hearing those words, a surge of joy washed over me, and I was ecstatic. To my utter surprise, Jin Ze knew I was truly Chen Mu. All my fears and anxieties vanished instantly, and, feeling as happy as a child, I darted swiftly behind him.

Once safely in his shelter, I could not help asking, "When did you find out that my identity had been swapped and that I am actually Chen Mu?"

Without looking at me, Jin Ze stood quietly, still gripping the two guns in his hands. Yet he replied without hesitation, "I have always known. I told you before, I could never mistake you for someone else."

I could not resist probing further, "Then how were you able to recognize me with such certainty? Is there no chance you could have misjudged?"

He answered straight away, "I am your best friend, am I not? As a friend, how could I ever fail to recognize you? If someone identical to me suddenly appeared by your side, would you ever mistake him for me?"

Without a moment's hesitation, I replied, "No, you are right. We are best friends, so I would certainly never mistake you. Are you using Huang Quan?"

Scarcely had the words left my mouth acknowledging that Jin Ze and I were best friends when I remembered that Bai Ye was still behind me. He had suffered several knife wounds and was in desperate need of medical attention.

I hurriedly turned my gaze back to Bai Ye. At that moment, Bai Ye was still kneeling on one knee, motionless, letting the blood ooze freely from his wounds, staring fixedly at Jin Ze and me without the slightest movement.

There was not a flicker of expression on Bai Ye’s face, yet it carried a faint undertone of desolation—resembling a proud yet desolate beast that had just conquered its adversary only to realize its own time was running short.

For a moment, I was at a loss for words. After all, Bai Ye was a criminal, and I dared not show any concern for him in front of Jin Ze.

Yet Bai Ye suddenly broke into a grin. This time, his smile was neither bewitching nor aloof.

Smiling, he said to me, "Chen Mu, your best friend has arrived."

I stood tongue-tied, not knowing how to respond. Then, he suddenly repeated the very phrase he had uttered earlier: "This is your ultimate destination. If the heart faces the sun, sorrow has no place."

At that juncture, Jin Ze spoke up: "Bai Ye, you are under arrest. You had better cooperate with us, or you will be shot on sight. The perimeter is already surrounded by the police."

Hardly had Jin Ze’s voice faded when Bai Ye abruptly struggled to his feet.

Upon standing, Bai Ye shockingly undid the strange apparatus strapped around his waist, and his face once again broke into his trademark, alluring smile.

Jin Ze abruptly muttered, "Not good!" At the same time, he pulled the trigger at Bai Ye, grabbed my arm, and bolted for the exit.

I understood Jin Ze’s intent—Bai Ye was likely about to detonate the explosive device. As Jin Ze dragged me toward the entrance of the passage, I cast one last glance back at Bai Ye.

To my utter astonishment, even after being struck by Jin Ze’s tranquilizer darts, Bai Ye had not lost consciousness. He was scattering small vials filled with various liquids all over the floor.

Knowing full well that I was watching him, Bai Ye raised his gaze to meet mine. The smile in his eyes was exceptionally bizarre, fraught with a sense of fury yet tinged with a strange serenity.

I hurriedly urged Jin Ze, "Shoot him again! Knock him out!"

Jin Ze replied, "It's useless. Let's get out of here first. He won't go so far as to kill himself outright. The police have the perimeter locked down; he has nowhere to run."

In the end, I rushed out in tow with Jin Ze. Upon clearing the passage and entering the kitchen, I saw that a considerable number of police officers had indeed taken up positions outside.

I let out a quiet sigh of relief—partly because the police had truly secured the area, and partly because Bai Ye had ultimately failed to trigger the explosion below.

Yet, at that exact second, a sharp pang gripped my heart, as if it had been brutally pierced by a blade, and an ominous premonition instantly washed over me: Could the reason Bai Ye hadn't detonated the device be that he was simply waiting for me to leave?

Consumed by frantic worry at this thought, I nevertheless had to drag Jin Ze outward. The moment we reached the kitchen doorway, I shoved Jin Ze hard through the threshold.

Leaving myself trapped inside, I heard a deafening roar erupt from the depths of the earth at that very moment. I could feel the entire ground shudder violently, as though a major earthquake had struck.

I was not afraid of death, but the immense shockwave and rising thermal blast surged upward from beneath. My head instantly buzzed with a piercing whine, followed by my ears going completely deaf to the roaring sound, and I rapidly lost consciousness.

I have no idea how long I remained unconscious, but when I groggily opened my eyes, I found myself lying on a hospital bed.

It was the middle of the night. I pressed the nurse call button, and Jin Ze soon arrived.

From what Jin Ze told me afterward, I learned that I had been unconscious for a full day and a night. The underground explosion beneath Huang Ju's house had been so violent that I had nearly plummeted into the abyss below, and it was only thanks to Jin Ze's quick reflexes that I had been hauled to safety just in time.

I asked Jin Ze for the specific details and the aftermath of the underground blast.

Jin Ze recounted, "The explosion was extremely fierce, fueled by some specialized liquid that also triggered a chain of fires. Huang Ju's entire villa was burned down. It wasn't until the firefighters extinguished the blaze that we could go down and inspect the underground area. It was completely unrecognizable—turned into a massive sinkhole where everything was utterly destroyed, to the point that even the bodies were unrecoverable."

Hearing this felt as though my heart was being carved apart by a knife, and I sat there in a daze, completely dumbfounded.

Then, Jin Ze abruptly said to me, "Chen Mu, there is something I need to tell you, but you must not breathe a word of it to anyone, including Team Leader Fang."

I sat blankly, making no response to Jin Ze.

He continued, "Although we couldn't recover many human remains from underground, we did manage to identify one corpse, and that body belonged to Lao Hei. I suspect this explosion was deliberately orchestrated—and I don't mean just Bai Ye triggering it, but rather that the detonation served a much deeper purpose: to cover up the truth."

I looked at Jin Ze skeptically, and he pressed on, "In truth, the phone belonging to Huang Quan that you were using had been tapped by us all along, so everything you went through was within my knowledge. I feel as though the truth Huang Ju laid out for you was more like a pre-written script—a script sufficient for us police to wrap up these two cases. This explosion and fire were meant to put a definitive end to everything, leaving the police with no trace to follow. Consequently, we have no way to verify whether Huang Ju and Wang Zhen were truly your biological parents, because we cannot even extract usable DNA from the blast site."

I grasped Jin Ze's implication. Someone was deliberately driving the police to close the case, likely to ensure that nobody dug any deeper and that everything was brought to a definitive halt.

At that moment, Jin Ze lowered his voice and added, "Moreover, we actually made a minor discovery at the explosion site: there was a secret secondary passageway. Although it has now been blown up and sealed shut, I suspect Bai Ye escaped through that route. A person like Bai Ye may be far more complex than we ever imagined. Staging this explosion might not have been an act of suicide, but rather a cover-up. Huang Ju and Wang Zhen were undoubtedly injected with some solvent by him, which is why their bodies were blasted into non-existence, leaving no DNA behind. They might not be your real parents at all. Huang Ju's account of Dawn and the Avengers may contain elements of truth, but beneath that truth lies an even darker conspiracy. Yet, certain forces do not want us to investigate any further, so they used Huang Ju as a scapegoat to force the case closed."

Hearing those words from Jin Ze sent a sharp jolt through my heart.

I believed Jin Ze wasn't trying to deceive or comfort me, because a sudden image flashed through my mind: the little girl, Xia Tian. She had acted as though she were privy to far more secrets than anyone else.

Could Bai Ye be just like Xia Tian? What manner of existence were they truly a part of, and whom did they serve? And ultimately, what kind of connection did they have with me?