Agent Yi Leng

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At this point, Yin Bingsong had been missing for forty hours. No one could find him. The borrowed Cayenne was still parked where he had left it, but the Jetta was gone. Checking the surveillance footage yielded nothing, and the police station refused to accept a missing person report because Yin Bingsong was an adult male—neither a child nor a woman. There was also no evidence to suggest he had been kidnapped or abducted, so they couldn’t open a case.

No one knew that Yin Bingsong was lying exhausted in a small room at the end of the basement corridor of the unfinished Jin Yang Center building, his spirit completely broken.

Early in the morning, Yi Leng drove to Jin Yang Center. He walked to the end of the corridor, opened the iron door, and shone a powerful flashlight inside. The beam of light revealed Yin Bingsong lying on the ground, barely alive. The intense light stung his eyes, but he didn’t even have the strength to raise his hand to shield them. He simply closed his eyes. At this moment, he was like a fish on a chopping block, completely at the mercy of others.

A person can survive for seven days with water, but without it, they can last only three days at most. Yin Bingsong had endured over forty hours by drinking his own urine. He was a tough man, no doubt.

Yi Leng tossed a handbag over to him and turned to leave.

Blinded temporarily by the flashlight, Yin Bingsong waited for over ten minutes until his vision adjusted. He groped around and found his familiar crocodile-skin handbag. He pulled out a lighter and struck it. The flame was a spark of life, a glimmer of hope. The iron door was open, and Yin Bingsong felt strength slowly returning to his body. He crawled out bit by bit, then stood up and staggered forward, terrified that another locked door might appear in front of him.

Luckily, there were no more doors blocking his way. He saw the white Jetta in the garage. The car keys were in the bag. He opened the trunk and grabbed a bottle of water, gulping it down greedily. Suddenly, overwhelmed by emotion, he broke down and wailed.

After crying for a long time, Yin Bingsong finally calmed down. He fished out a cigarette, lit it, and took a deep drag. Half the cigarette was gone in one puff. As the nicotine spread through his veins, he felt much calmer. Sitting in the car, he turned on his phone and saw dozens of missed calls. Checking the time, he realized it had been exactly fifty hours since his abduction.

But those forty-eight hours in the dark, timeless void had felt like an eternity. To him, it seemed like half a lifetime had passed. He flipped down the sun visor and looked at himself in the mirror, startled by his own reflection. Severe dehydration had left him looking like a ghost.

He drove back slowly. As he passed through the city, he stopped at a breakfast shop that had just opened for the day. He bought two pounds of steamed buns and three bowls of soup. Sitting in the shop, he devoured the food like a starving man, his ravenous eating startling the shop owner. “Brother, how many days has it been since you last ate?” she asked.

Yin Bingsong ate all sixty buns and drank the three bowls of soup. He smoked two more cigarettes and watched as the streets gradually came to life. Finally, he felt like he had truly come back to life.

He wondered who had done this to him. This was worse than killing him outright. He couldn’t figure out who it was, but he was almost certain it was the same person who had planted the bomb last time.

After going through a life-and-death ordeal, a person’s mind becomes sharper. Yin Bingsong carefully recalled the two recent attempts on his life. Both had gone beyond the usual behavior of Jiangwei’s underworld figures. Local gangsters who wanted to deal with someone usually resorted to simple, brute force, preferring to act in groups. This kind of lone-wolf precision was unheard of.

He went through the list of people he had recently crossed and finally settled on a name: Huang Pihu. This guy was skilled, his background was unclear, and he had a grudge against Yin Bingsong. It was probably him. But this was just a guess, and it needed to be verified.

The bomb incident from before was one thing, but this time, if his captor hadn’t let him go, he would have died in that basement. Months later, his remains would have been discovered as a pile of bones, and the case might never have been solved.

He was a man who had once been a formidable figure in his own right. To die in such an ignominious way would have been too humiliating.

Yin Bingsong had returned, but he didn’t tell anyone about his ordeal. He simply said over the phone that he had gone out to sea for some business and that there had been no signal on his phone. Then he went home, took a hot shower, changed into a fresh set of clothes, ordered takeout for lunch, and rested for the afternoon. By evening, he drove to Huang Pihu’s restaurant.

Yi Leng wasn’t the least bit surprised by Yin Bingsong’s visit. It was still early, and the restaurant was empty. Yin Bingsong walked in with a leather bag tucked under his arm, his eyes fixed on Yi Leng. His gaze was complex, a mix of fear, wariness, and confusion.

Yi Leng wiped a table with a rag, casually asking, “You alright?”

Yin Bingsong nodded. That single question confirmed his suspicions.

“The first time was a warning. The second time was a lesson. The third time, you’ll disappear for good,” Yi Leng said softly.

Yin Bingsong had always considered himself a tough man who had lived on the edge, unafraid of anyone in the underworld. But this time, he was truly scared. The man in front of him had no roots, no attachments, and nothing to lose. Yin Bingsong, on the other hand, had a family, a career, and a life. He couldn’t afford to trade his life for this man’s. Moreover, Yi Leng had the means to make him disappear without a trace, leaving no evidence behind.

A tough retort lingered on the tip of his tongue, but in the end, it came out as a meek admission: “There might have been some misunderstanding.”

“It was a misunderstanding. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be standing here,” Yi Leng said disdainfully. “Oh, and stay away from Ling Siyan.”

This last statement actually put Yin Bingsong’s mind at ease. If the other party had demands, that was manageable. Staying away from Ling Siyan was easy enough. As for other matters, Yin Bingsong didn’t need to be told—he would tread carefully from now on and avoid causing trouble for Yu Mei Restaurant.

As for the conflict between Yin Weiran and Yi Nuan, Yi Leng didn’t bring it up. He believed that Nuan needed to resolve it herself to truly move on. Adults shouldn’t interfere.

As for Ling Siyan, Yi Leng hadn’t originally planned to say anything. She was an adult, and the path she chose was her own. If her will was weak, even without Yin Bingsong, some other “big brother” would have come along. But seeing Yin Bingsong in this state changed his mind. Without the influence of such sleazy men, young people might not stray down the wrong path. If he could lend a hand, he would. For Yi Leng, it was just a matter of saying a few words.

Another young man who had gone astray, Zhang Cong, was under Yi Leng’s guidance and was on his way to becoming a competent cook. However, he still had a long way to go before he could be considered an excellent one. He could now prepare Da Hong Pao tea on his own, and simple stir-fries were no problem for him.

In any profession, the master can only show you the door; the rest is up to you. Even Yi Leng wouldn’t call himself a master chef. He couldn’t carve intricate phoenixes out of radishes or watermelon rinds, nor could he slice a block of tender tofu into fifteen thousand fine strands. Those were skills that required years of painstaking practice, and they weren’t necessary for running a small restaurant.

The two days in the dark room had drained Yin Bingsong of all his vigor. He looked disheveled and listless, a far cry from the imposing figure of a gang boss. When Wu Yumei walked in, she almost didn’t recognize him. After a second glance, she said, “Isn’t this my brother Song?”

Yin Bingsong had once had designs on Wu Yumei, though it was something everyone knew but never spoke of. If flirting with Ling Siyan, who was completely unrelated to him, had landed him in that dark room, then making advances on Wu Yumei would be suicidal. Yin Bingsong quickly said, “Sister-in-law, I’ve got some business to attend to. I’ll be on my way.”

“Stay a little longer,” Wu Yumei said, watching Yin Bingsong flee in a panic. Though she didn’t understand what had happened, she was pleased. She turned to Yi Leng and said, “What’s wrong with him? He looks like he owes someone two million.”

Yi Leng chuckled but didn’t respond. Wu Yumei didn’t press the matter. She had just returned from scouting locations for a larger restaurant. She hadn’t found many suitable places, but she had taken a liking to the hair salon next door. She thought about taking over Yan Aihua’s shop to expand their own business. Not only would it increase their space, but it would also get rid of that annoying woman. It was a win-win situation, and she was quite pleased with her own cleverness.

“Old Huang, our place is too small, and we don’t have enough staff,” Wu Yumei said. She felt happy just looking at Huang Pihu. To her, he wasn’t just a middle-aged cook with permed hair and a bracelet; he was a golden goose. Ever since Huang Pihu had joined them, their business and luck had skyrocketed. She even credited him with bringing in the investment from Ali.

“What do you have in mind?” Yi Leng asked. He had been considering the same issue, though his ideas weren’t fully formed yet.

“I want to take over Yan Aihua’s shop. She’s not making any money anyway. You go talk to her—she’ll listen to you,” Wu Yumei said.

“Alright, I’ll have a chat with her when I get the chance,” Yi Leng agreed.

A day later, Yi Leng drove to a logistics park in the suburbs. He met a long-haul truck driver named Liu Zhigang and picked up a package. Instead of using standard courier services like STO or YTO, he had opted for the old-fashioned method of using a “trusted courier.” While not as reliable, it offered excellent confidentiality. The driver would simply deliver the package and forget about it, leaving no trace. Courier services, on the other hand, left a trail of records. Sometimes, the older methods were the safest.

The package had no sender’s address. It was just a large envelope containing a fake ID wrapped in old newspapers. Yi Leng had purchased it on the “Silk Road” website using Bitcoin. The ID was real and could pass machine verification—a genuine fake document.

The name on the ID was Jidi Lalong, and the registered address was in a Yi autonomous county in Yunnan. Yi Leng had heard of the place—it was deep in the mountains, with poor transportation links and classified as a national-level poverty-stricken county. Many of its residents had left to seek better opportunities elsewhere. The photo on the ID bore a sixty to seventy percent resemblance to Yi Leng’s current appearance.

Yi Leng had researched online and found that facial recognition technology was advancing rapidly. Cameras paired with algorithms could identify a person in seconds, provided their data was already in the system. The algorithms relied on the geometric relationships between key facial features, making them more accurate than even the most experienced police officers at train stations.

However, it would take time for the technology to become widespread. This ID wouldn’t fool the police, but it would suffice for general use. It was better than being a person with no identity at all.

The man named Jidi Lalong was a few years older than Yi Leng. Perhaps he was no longer alive, or perhaps he had been forced to sell his ID out of desperation. In any case, fate had somehow connected him to Yi Leng. Yi Leng had used many aliases in his life, and now he had one more.

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